this is the voice of re:mote induction.Monday, December 01, 2003
ruule - the ganglords of china town - this is the first of five in a prestige format comic series, which is to say its 48 pages, card bound for regular price. the regular price being just as well, because if i had spent much more on it i would have felt even more ripped off than i do.
don't let the david mack covers fool you into thinking that this is an intelligent and worth while comic. its not. really, it is badly written and illustrated. i think we are something like 10 pages in before there is a single word of dialogue, a trend which continues through the remainder of the book. relying too much on drawn out visuals to tell a story. with the result that there is very little content and very little context to this story which seems entirely too reliant on cliche and caricature.
a cartoon biker gang are terrorising areas of san francisco. which i assume from the subtext of broken down areas is intended to be near future, though like many things that remains unclear. china town appears to have been a particular problem for the gang when it comes to collecting money as is demonstrated by a terror attack and rare lines of grunted dialogue. we are supposed to become intrigued by the last couple of pages, where a mysterious man kills a couple of gang members to protect a woman (who he will of course fall in love with YAWN!), followed by a strange broadcast which talks about false idols and worship. this is all very ham fisted, and only the telegraphing for the next issue really tells us that there is supposed to be something mysterious or interesting going on.
art wise the images have a sub-disney cartoon vibe going on, with attempts to look serious and tough at times. strangely the dialogue stumbles over swearing with such gems as calling gang members a bunch of nannies, cutting off mother fu, and the old favourite of #@$£ styled filler. which is then even odder when we have a gory beheading, and a tiresome tracking shot of said head. all of which would seem to be more adult content than any swear word, but who can follow this kind of logic. the head shot in particular is an example of the kind of artistic excesses at work in ruule, where pages are filled with repeated shots of nothing happening. which might be intended to be atmospheric, but with nothing to back it up, instead comes across as wasted space and wanton filler. at times the work is far too cartoony for its own good - the smiley pommel of a sword, the face of an old woman while a statue gets struck by lightening in the background.
for me this is really lazy comics, entirely too disposable for it's own good, with no incentive to read any more of this series. in a dwindling market, plagued by the mono culture of super heroes, it should be a good thing for someone to be branching out, but we need a better standard than this.
don't let the david mack covers fool you into thinking that this is an intelligent and worth while comic. its not. really, it is badly written and illustrated. i think we are something like 10 pages in before there is a single word of dialogue, a trend which continues through the remainder of the book. relying too much on drawn out visuals to tell a story. with the result that there is very little content and very little context to this story which seems entirely too reliant on cliche and caricature.
a cartoon biker gang are terrorising areas of san francisco. which i assume from the subtext of broken down areas is intended to be near future, though like many things that remains unclear. china town appears to have been a particular problem for the gang when it comes to collecting money as is demonstrated by a terror attack and rare lines of grunted dialogue. we are supposed to become intrigued by the last couple of pages, where a mysterious man kills a couple of gang members to protect a woman (who he will of course fall in love with YAWN!), followed by a strange broadcast which talks about false idols and worship. this is all very ham fisted, and only the telegraphing for the next issue really tells us that there is supposed to be something mysterious or interesting going on.
art wise the images have a sub-disney cartoon vibe going on, with attempts to look serious and tough at times. strangely the dialogue stumbles over swearing with such gems as calling gang members a bunch of nannies, cutting off mother fu, and the old favourite of #@$£ styled filler. which is then even odder when we have a gory beheading, and a tiresome tracking shot of said head. all of which would seem to be more adult content than any swear word, but who can follow this kind of logic. the head shot in particular is an example of the kind of artistic excesses at work in ruule, where pages are filled with repeated shots of nothing happening. which might be intended to be atmospheric, but with nothing to back it up, instead comes across as wasted space and wanton filler. at times the work is far too cartoony for its own good - the smiley pommel of a sword, the face of an old woman while a statue gets struck by lightening in the background.
for me this is really lazy comics, entirely too disposable for it's own good, with no incentive to read any more of this series. in a dwindling market, plagued by the mono culture of super heroes, it should be a good thing for someone to be branching out, but we need a better standard than this.
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