Customer Reviews

Alan Moore's America's Best Comics

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After enjoying the first bound volume of " America 's Best Comics," I rushed out to get volume II, hoping for the same. I was disappointed.

Volume II took a quite snarky tone toward its subject than did Volume I. The writing was also pretty juvenile and there were more deliberate anachronisms, mixing modern and Edwardian references. One page was a reproduction (it seemed) of a game page from "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen." And the b©©b-to-panel ratio was astronomical. This was especially true in the easiest-to-read section of the comic, an otherwise-inventive adventure in which Tesla Strong, Tom and Dhalua's super daughter, rides her electric surfboard into parallel universes, searching for her missing gorilla, Solomon. Whether this is an attraction or distraction is in the eye of the beholder.

This volume is a potpourri. Aside from the Tesla story mentioned, there's a clever 10-page series featuring helmeted heroine Promothea, called "Little Margie in Mystic Magic Land." This section is drawn in the style of early-20th century comics, and concerns the adventures of a little girl and her Asian companion, "Chinky" (oh, please!) amongst the planets. There are mock ads, a take off of "The Sopranos" using vampires, and an intolerably unfunny strip about America history written in the style of Saturday morning cartoons. The last quarter of the book is a series of sketches for various characters from the series.

I'd skim this one, or give it a miss. Being reduced to making fun of one's creations is a sure fire way to tell you've run out of ideas.

Since I don't (any longer) read periodic comics on a regular basis, my only contact with them is these compilations, which I tend to view as the illustrated equivalent of novels or short stories. Which means those strips that begin in media res are apt to go right over my head, since I'm not familiar with previous plot-lines, but that's not necessarily a fault of the publication. Artistically, the most successful one in this collection is probably "The Many Worlds of Tesla Strong," which is also the longest. Eric Shanower's "Promethea" is also pretty good, a take-off on the 1900-style art of "Little Nemo," but with some sly 2000-style social asides. The least successful has to be "The Cobweb," which is done in a junior-high-school-amateur style that I can't take seriously. I was also kind of put off by "Splash Brannigan." I mean, are they kidding? But the rest of the book is certainly worth reading, and the collective "Sketchbook" section at the end is especially interesting.