DAYTRIPPER #4 (OF 10)

Review by: akamuu

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Avg Rating: 4.5
 
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Written by F

Size: 32 pages
Price: 2.99

I wondered when I read the second issue how long it would take for the pretense of the comic to get stale.  Three issues.

This isn’t a bad comic.  It’s still, as many of the reviews say, “honest”, but it has started to read more contrived than interesting.  This issue focuses on the balance of life and death.  When one person dies, a new one is born.  That’s a very very tired trope.  In order to make it anything more than schmaltzy, you have to add something very resonant.  And I didn’t feel that in this issue at all.  And the death at the end (which is not a spoiler if you’ve read any of the previous issues) felt empty, and not in that “tragically empty” feeling that can twist your stomach, more in the empty shrug of shoulders.

The art in this book is still as good as it has been since the first issue, but the story has slipped from excellent to mediocre very rapidly. 

Story: 3 - Good
Art: 5 - Excellent
 

Comments

  1. Avatar photo ScorpionMasada says:
    March 11, 2010 at 9:22 pm

    I don’t think issues 3 and 4 were as good as the first two, but this is still a really great book.

    I preferred this end death to the one in issue #3, which was way too obvious.

    The story is going to suffer from its own rigid structure with the end death for 10 issues.

    They handled the one death/one birth thing with a bit more grace than I think your review accounts for.

    Especially since there were two deaths to the one birth, unless Bras is the father as well as the son.

  2. Avatar photo DenverDave says:
    March 12, 2010 at 1:47 am

    Yeah, I think this review sums it up perfectly. It’s like this book went out of the gate too fast and now it can’t keep up with the enthusiasm we all had at the beginning. It’s still a really good book, but it’s structure is a hinderment to telling a gripping narrative. For a one shot you don’t need gripping narrative, but for a ten issue mini you do. 

     

     

  3. Avatar photo akamuu says:
    March 12, 2010 at 7:35 pm

    @scorpionMasada: Good call on the two deaths.  I guess I’ve stopped counting Bras’s death, since he’s been Kenneyed in every issue.  I just find the birth/death metaphor incredibly overused.  I do agree that it wasn’t over-the-top bad in this comic, it just…it didn’t affect me.  Mainly, because it was telegraphed very early in the comic.

    @DenverDave: Do you think this will read better as a trade?

  4. Avatar photo Urthona says:
    March 13, 2010 at 2:08 am

    Akamuu, your review is right on the bullseye.  I’m praying they’ve got a twist coming or I’m not going to make it to the end.

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