24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Even for Kevin Smith fans, this is nearly unreadable, November 18, 2009
This review is from: Batman: Cacophony (Hardcover)
I really wanted to like Batman: Cacophony. Like a lot of people who picked up this title, I am a huge Kevin Smith fan. I'm more of a fan of Smith himself (interviews, Evening Withs) than his actual work. His past jaunts into comics have been somewhat of a mixed bag for me. I enjoyed his Daredevil miniseries and some of the Green Arrow stuff, for example.
When this project was announced in the middle of '08, I was really looking forward to seeing how Kevin Smith tackles Batman. But I was also a little worried that the character of Batman wouldn't fit with Smith's writing style.
I was right to be worried. It really is bad. Cringe-worthy bad in many spots. I bought the comics as they arrived in the comic store and I really don't know why I even bought all the issues. I guess I was hoping Smith would pull off a great ending. Thankfully it was only a 3-issue run.
Artwork: Very poor and lazy. Smith freely admits that Flanagan got the job because they are friends. It would take a lot more than friendship for me to allow a 'talent' like this to ruin my storytelling. As a fan of Kevin Smith for over 15 years, I had heard of Walt Flanagan. However, I had never seen his artwork before. Ugh. Ech. Bleh. I can't believe an important character like Batman was given over to this guy. The covers were very misleading. Adam Kubert did all three covers, which are actually decent. I wish he had done the inside work as well. But back to Flanagan. Much of his work was very distracting, and often I would linger at some panels and marvel at how bad they were. Did he only have a weekend to turn in his work? One sequence especially stands out to me. On the second to last page of Part 1, there is a group of characters leaving a school, including the Joker himself, and Flanagan simply took the same drawing and put it on three different panels--each of which showing the group getting further away from the school. It's so obvious it's the same drawing it just made me think that he got lazy and didn't want to have to redraw the group three times. Also, many panels seem too 'cartoony'.
Story: Below average. Again, I love Smith, but Batman is not a character for him. I know he wanted to create something that would fit in with the long history of memorable Batman stories, but he falls way short. At the heart of the story there is very little that we haven't read before, and we've seen it portrayed far better. There are a few decent lines, but I had to stop myself from skimming the final issue because it just seemed boring. Maybe the artwork was so bad that I had a hard time really getting into the story. To his credit, Smith does a solid job with the Joker, but it isn't good enough to save this.
Price: I know the graphic novel is around $20, which is way too high. The three issues I purchased were $4 each, which is fairly standard, but a rip-off as well.
Bottom line: If you MUST read this, buy a cheap used copy, read it over a weekend, and put it back up for sale. Trust me, the condition doesn't matter because you won't be keeping it anyway. Kevin Smith needs to stick to characters that align more with his voice. He's much better than what Batman: Cacophony shows.
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13 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Not worth the money for a graphic novel, November 13, 2009
This review is from: Batman: Cacophony (Hardcover)
I've been a huge Batman fan, and a Kevin Smith fan for years. As such, I was out of town on business and picked this up at a local Borders to read back at my hotel. Yes, everyone understands that different writers have different 'takes' on characters, but sometimes in these pages, I found myself thinking that Smith was writing what he was writing just to be different, with no real understanding of the characters at all (some of the Joker stuff is just ridiculous).
Still, my biggest complaint (and I know this has been a major issue since the comic came out), is with the artist. Apparently Smith was well aware of this, and specifically addresses it in his introduction (having to defend the awful pairing of a respect writer and a hack wanna be comic artist?!). While I was made aware that the illustrator had worked in a professional capacity before (although not at any of the major companies), I really could care less if this is the guy who introduced Smith to comic books or not. I paid my hard earned money for something that I expected to put on my bookshelf with my other Batman Graphic Novels (Arkham, Killing Joke, Returns etc...). Instead I saw page after page of work that would most likely be politely rejected at any local comic book conevntion. I work with high school art students who have a better understanding of anatomy, composition, and story telling. I'm sorry, but just because you love comic books and are Kevin Smith's childhood buddy shouldn't qualify you to draw one of comicdom's most respected characters.
I'm selling mine online, not simply to get a few bucks back, but out of principle. I like to think that my collection consists of quality materials, that I can read, and reread again and again, and always find that feeling of enjoyment and respect for the creators. This item has no place there.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Smith writes a dud., January 2, 2011
Smith hasn't gotten any better from when he wrote Guardian Devil. The villian in this book Onomatopoeia, is very interesting with his gimmick but he is hardly developed and he is one of the few saving graces in this bland and forgettable comic book. The other saving and pretty well done moment is the talk between the Joker and Batman towards the end of the book when Smith writes the Joker as sane as he could possibly get (honestly the Joker is such a odd character that he can somehow pull off both being serious and funny that he doesn't have to use that excuse but whatever)
Even the talk at the very end of the book pales in comparison to other evaluations between Batman and the Joker. (One of my favorites being the talk between the two of them in Under the Red Hood, and in Dark Knight Returns) but its still solid writing (some of the only in this book) I haven't been impressed by any of Smith's comic work but he is getting better.
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