|
|||||||
|
|
|
|||||
|
|
|||||||
The Gypsy Lounge #1:Lunchtime Variety Criminals (Aweful Books) is a challenging,confounding, fractured piece of work. I'm not entirely sure, butI think it's a great piece of work. I'm still thinking about it.What it reads like is a superhero comic that's taken one too manytabs of acid. It fractures time and space, destroys the narrativehere and there, and is just plain wierd in places. It starts outin the 1907's with a superhero named The Dandy-Lion, who takestoo many pharmaceuticals in order to handle his superpowers. I'mnot sure what they are, but they seem to be powerful. He gets anadrenaline rushkicking the stuffing out of villains (he alsotakes their money to support his drug habit, which is the firsttime I've ever heard of such a thing in comics). One day, hetakes too much of some substance and all heck breaks loose. Then,the comic book cuts forward to what I think is the present, wherewe focus on Gina, the daughter of what seems to be anothersuperhero whowants to come out of retirement. When a recruitmentattempt by Men In Black types fail, they try to hunt her down inorder to kill her. Did I mention there's a wierd space alieninvolved along the way?
What really bringsthis baby home is the art. I've never seen art like this stuff.It's part cartoon, part collage, part text, part photo-realism,and many, many other things I can't start to describe. It'sperfect for the story. A lot of it doesn't make sense on aconventional level, but it's fascinating to behold. This comic isa trip, to say the least.
I can't judge thiscomic based on the conventional levels of criticism very well.The plot does seem to move forward at a breakneck pace. Thecharacters seem to be pretty well defined. Jasen Lex, the creatorof this work, seems to know where it's going, even if the readeris stumped about it. But, somehow, all these things fall by thewayside when you read the comic. What grabs you and won't let gois the sheer insanity and hallucinogenic quality to the work. I'mnot sure if it's a very likable comic, but it kept me interested.Maybe it's the sort of thing that might be perfect for those whowonder what comic they'll read after The Invisibles ends.
-- Barb Lien-Cooper