DAYTRIPPER #10 (OF 10)

Review by: edward

What did the
iFanboy
community think?

415
Pulls
Avg Rating: 4.8
 
Users who pulled this comic:
Users who reviewed this comic:
Written by GABRIEL B

Size: 32 pages
Price: 2.99

The last issue of the Vertigo series Daytripper by Gabriel Ba and Fabio Moon was published this week.

After finishing the tenth issue, I can’t recall feeling as cheated and blatantly manipulated by a comic. Personally, I hope you take a moment on the podcast to read this and present a different point of view.

A series so focused on conveying the human experience with such an inane and forced tone really lacked emotional depth or insight to support these themes. Instead it relied on a device designed to produce an undeserved emotional respond in the reader. KILLING THE MAIN CHARACTER IN EACH ISSUE. It’s the literary version of having your cake and eating it to.

Want to write a series with asinine but superficial stories but need a way make it all feel really, really profound? Well, kill the main character in each issue. And you know what’s an added benefit of this little trick? It ultimately means closure or real emotional catharsis on the reader’s end is impossible.  Death in every issue means death means nothing.

I love Ba and Moon’s work; both fantastic artists. However, I feel that in light of the comics community’s stonewall mentality to certain topics, creators or points of view; it behoves us to consider unpopular opinions from time to time and call a spade a spade. Daytripper was bad. Tonally, it was a very juvenile attempt at some ontological statement. 

 I have limited time to write this so I’m afraid I can’t go express my thoughts more thoroughly. This is, of course, all just my opinion. An opinion I firmly believe has a lot of merit. 

Thanks for your time,

Story: 5 - Excellent
Art: 1 - Poor

Comments

  1. SORRY, ART:5, STORY:1

  2. The issue that I think sidesteps your criticisms was issue #7. I believe that was the issue where he encounters his best friend who had gone missing.

    That is the first time that his death actually feels necessary to the theme of the issue.

    I don’t recall how I phrased it in the comment thread, but his death was the direct result of idealizing humanity and friendship and watching how the world can learn you the hard way when you are too naive.

    I’ll assume you read that issue. What did you think of it?

  3. I thought that issue really stretched to find some meaning in an unsatisfying way

  4. I thought the same of issue #9 of this series, Amazing Spider-Man #159, Avengers volume 2 #55 and JLA #109.

  5. Right. I agree. The thing is i wouldn’t expect anyone to say those issues are brilliant works of art

  6. Just finished the issue and thought it was much better than the last issue, which I really disliked.

    There was some strong dialogue in this. He also didn’t die.

    I think you are rallying against phantoms.

    I understand that to be a corrective you sometimes have to be bitter, but no one is saying this is wriitng on the level with Alan Moore or any literary giant for that matter.

  7. I felt the series was quite good, but I see where you’re coming from. There’s definitely some emotional manipulation going on, in my opinion, due to how Daytripper presents scenes that basically force the reader to think, "Wow, that’s emotional". The problem arises because of how relentlessly the series ONLY focuses on such scenarios. Imagine a movie where EVERY SCENE shows someone dying or crying or giving birth or getting married: past a certain point, such a sequence just becomes an exercise in wringing out unearned emotional responses from the audience. That’s KINDA sorta how Daytripper is.

    Personally, though, I think it was an interesting excerise. I never really got emotionally committed to the series, and never got caught up in calling it the best series of 2010 or anything. Basically, I never participated in hyping the book up to the heavens. How could I do that when, from the second issue, it’s clear that the writers are relying on blatant shock-value forced-pathos methods to get a response? But I still appreciated the book as a solid, interesting series. And maybe I’m overstating the negative here. Overall, I liked the writing. But I notice the amateur poetics and inherent screaming at the reader "Aren’t I MEANINGFUL?? THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE SAAAAAAD, GET IT!!??"

  8. Aren’t I MEANINGFUL?? THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE SAAAAAAD, GET IT?

    Exactly! 

  9. I love that I never, ever agree with anything you say, even a little.  It’s wonderful.  As I mentioned in another comment, the beauty of this issue, for me, is that this is exactly what having a son feels like.  It captured the feeling perfectly.  Was there emotional manipulation?  Sure, but no more than any other comic.  Doom on the last page of Young Avengers.  The last page of Thanos Imperative.  The last page of nearly every super-hero comic is intended to be emotional manipulation.  It’s why we keep reading, and I genuinely don’t think it’s different than "this is how Bras might have died, this time."

    Once it was clear that he didn’t really "die" at the end of every issue, it lost its punch.  Each death became a metaphor for a place in his life where he made a choice, and that choice changed his perspective.  "Death" isn’t physical but represents a new direction for him. It’s a metaphor.

  10. and i love that you love that. Always being wrong that is 🙂

    I really don’t agree that this is anytihing like Young Avengers or Thanos Imperative, by the way 

  11. That’s not what I said.  What I said was: the last page of comic books is frequently emotionally manipulative, then gave two examples.  In all other ways, it’s completely different than those books.  But the point remains: comic books are always emotionally manipulative.  It’s one reason that we buy them (from a psychological standpoint, the stories give us intermittent positive rewards, which works very well for training mammals to do things).  

    I just think that it’s false to accuse Daytripper of emotional manipulation when every comic does it.  How many comics have you read where the hero seems to die on the last page?  How is that any different than this, other than being less well executed and literary? 

  12. Searching 

Leave a Comment