FRANKENSTEIN AGENT OF S.H.A.D.E. #1

Review by: SummerSleep

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Written by JEFF LEMIRE
Art by ALBERTO PONTICELLI
Cover by J.G. JONES

Size: 32 pages
Price: 2.99

Jeff Lemire, Jeff Lemire, you beautiful bride you! Unfortunately this is a bridesmaid’s effort, if it can be called that. Lucid and dripping from immense debt and flooding in my college-town, seeking refuge at my hometown, I bought this book to lift my spirits.
I think, GOOD FICTION HEALS ALL ILLS! This is okay fiction. Perhaps bordering on standard and buttering the sandwich of mediocrity. Yes, Mr. Lemire, we approve of your OBVIOUS references to the fact you’ve taken in FRANKENSTEIN, the classic work by Mary Shelley. Yes, you do not fail the namesake and name dropping. But what do you really do? You craft a plot that floats by like so many drowned animals on the side of the highway in my flight from Bloomsburg. You know the character, but where is the story, sir? All of this reads like set up, and the ending is, well, merely a happenstance thing. It could have come about in any way or sense. There is a lack of cohesion here, things just go by, and quickly DO NOT SIT AND THINK ABOUT THESE THINGS THEY ARE JUST ELEMENTS OF STORY KEEP READING OH MY GOD KEEP READING DON’T STOP DON’T LET YOURSELF FIND A PIECE OF THE STORY, TAKE TOO LONG IN THIS BORING ASS BUILDING THAT IS CLICHE, BUT THAT’S FINE, AS IT IS STYLISTIC CHOICE but what I’m saying is there is quite a lot of things Mr. Lemire could have chosen to work into this tale, simple devices could have been implemented which were not, to make the thing feel like an actual story, not just a thing you begin on one side of a cover and end on the other.
The best story Mr. Lemire relates to the reader is the opening 3 pages, which are superb storytelling. I think Mr. Lemire is talented, yes, but this is not a great display of his work. I love and crave Sweet Tooth with every digustingly alive molecule in my fat human shell, but this? I won’t be picking up the next issue.
HOWEVER, let us speak of Mr. Lemire’s accomplice, who by far outclasses him. No offense to Mr. Lemire, this may sound like harsh diatribe, and I say, no, it is mere diatribe. Alberto Ponticelli, who I assume is a sir, is a fine artist. Mr. Ponticelli must have been birthed from the womb with pen and genius in his grasp, his work so beautiful. These pages feel, they impressionistically lay into the reality for the reader, and their finest moments are breathtaking simple, well crafted, and nuanced in a way that Mr. Lemire has not lived up to very much. Mr. Ponticelli does a far better job than Mr. Lemire at his task, bringing life to the story, the atmosphere that Mr. Lemire failed to create in his words, is all taken up by Mr. Ponticelli in something which would lead the hardest men to tears, and the softest men to their graves. He captures the macabre of the characters, the cliche of Mr. Lemire’s Father Time, all so well, he nearly makes up for the lack of his collaborator.
I imagine this story, drawn by a lesser artist, would have made me run, crying to my comic shop, my tears drowning me where floodwaters failed, and asked for a refund, to get Batwoman, which I of course neglected to pick up. (This error shall be rectified, I assure you.) I would inact that course of action if it were not for Mr. Ponticelli.
What Mr. Ponticelli does, aside from saving this small amount of pages, is take what Mr. Lemire does best and make it better. Mr. Lemire here is showing what he can do with his mind. It is fantastic, to say the least. The thoughtlessness of plot and the harsh chains of cliche might wear thin on the Canadian gentlemen, but this all done with obvious love. If I had the money, I would stick around for the second issue, as I think this debut is merely a misstep of a fine ballerina, and one of the truest wordsmiths in the game. Buy Sweet Tooth, buy the Nobody, apparently buy Animal Man, and buy Frankenstein #2, just take #1 with a grain of salt…

Story: 2 - Average
Art: 4 - Very Good

Comments

  1. The CORRECT ratings should be:
    2 – Story
    4 – Art

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