Art by: James Devlin
Colors by: Tom Smith
So I'm in the comic shop buying my usual grab bag of sex and violence and, as usual, I run my bloodshot eyes over indie comics. You know the type. Small presses that specialize in either comic versions of sci-fi and horror classics that everyone hates, including the people selling them, or the off the wall, home stapled, artistically (read poorly) inked, sometimes without words because the artwork speaks for it self.... crap basically. But I enjoy looking over these ill-conceived attempts at artistic expression because once in a long, long, long ass while I run across something that can peak my interests or at least make me chuckle drunkenly. It’s like going to garage sales to look at the records: most of the wax you find is shitty Hall and Oats records but every once in a while you find something that is the antithesis of Hall and Oats.
The last time I was slumming it in the indie section I saw Blood Nation. The big "#1 FIRST ISSUE!" bursting from the front cover made me fear the contents but I swallowed my optic fear and picked it up. If I were to judge this comic on it's artwork alone I would have been right to listen to my eyes. The artwork isn't great. It is barely, and I mean just barely, passable. Think cartoon network’s Johnny Bravo without the funny script and moving pictures: just fails to make me content to flip through it. I get the feeling the artist didn't want to draw the background to any of the panels because it might actually give depth to said panels. Often the characters are given simple clothing or simple environments no matter what they might be wearing in previous pages. This lack of effort alone is grounds for dismissal by me.
Now I know I'm being harsh but hear me out, the colorist sucks too. If he sucked as hard in real life as he did coloring this book he could easily produce that mythical golf ball through that length of ordinary garden hose. Shading isn't in this guy's vocabulary. In fact I'm not sure if he could recognize shading unless shading walked up to him and produced several shads of black, blue, purple, yellow, and green on his face for forgetting that when light is anywhere to be found then shadows must be cast. That or the shadows will envelope him and beat him senseless for making them work so much God damned overtime for this comic. That is to say that no middle grown was ever reached. Either everything was pitch black or clearly just wrong. This colorist needs to have his hands removed so he can’t hurt any more poor defenseless eyes ever again.
The artwork is disappointing. "No shit!' you might say, thinking me daft for not remembering the written ass reaming I gave the ink and art workers. "That isn't why the artwork is disappointing," I'll respond while hitting you in the face with the empty beer bottle in my hand, the beer I just finished. Trust me that beer bottle is perpetually there too so watch your mouth. The artwork is disappointing because the cover work is solid. Rob Moran did the artwork for all three alternate covers for this series he created and his talents for art should have been put to use between the covers as well as scripting this artistic train wreck. The score would have been better at least. Shit, I need another beer.
Where was I? Oh yeah, Moran. The creator, writer, and cover artist for this four part series seems to be hampered by his hired help. The only redeeming part of this comic is the story. Inventive ideas and story are the only reasons I'll keep reading the next three parts. The characters are a bit recycled and a little on the overused side. The main characters seem to be the vampire that was once Genghis Khan, which does explain that whole conquering the known world thing, and an old soldier that is basically a punisher knock off with a death wish; Not the best base but he makes it work. Sprinkled throughout this first issue are little tidbits that really make the reader, i.e. me, want to find out what the fuck happened in the soldier's past that he deserves daily beatings as ordered by the president.
Let this issue be a lesson to all comic book writers out there, if you know how to write, and how to draw DO NOT LET SUB PAR TALENT DO INK WORK FOR YOU! At this point if I was Central Head I would make some comparison to some wonderfully written comic that had shitty artwork that is held on some fan boy pedestal or refer to Lefty and his penchant for blaming Grant Morrison for his cancer, but I got nothing.
Rating: Lando, it would have scored higher but the artists decided they wanted to piss all over a good story with their expression.
Beers I drank while writing this review: 3, Pinstripe Red Ale. It’s no New Glarus but nothing really is.
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