Curiosity got the better of me when it came to picking up Saber Rider and the Star Sheriffs. Perhaps it looked a little too much like Bravestar which got my nostalgia bell ringing. Whatever the case I decided to read Lion Force Comics’ Saber Rider and the Star Sheriffs. The gist of the issue is that Joshua our lead Star Sheriff is hot on the tracks of a train that’s being hijacked. Basically picture every western era stereotype and then make it high tech, just like Bravestar and that’s the look and feel of the world. Joshua runs into a bounty hunter, Colt and they take on the train robbers which include an ex-Star Sheriff that was once considered the best ever. They don’t succeed and another Star Sheriff, April Eagle, is sent to oversee the operation of stopping our former Star Sheriff.
To boil down this formula even more, it’s Green Lantern mixed with Bravestar and basically a lot of other 80s cartoons. This comic book read like it was an ad for a toy line and frankly if I were a kid, I would have been ready to buy.
The writing is simple. There’s a ton and I mean a ton of exposition. I don’t think Joshua says more than a few things that aren’t exposition and that includes his narration and dialogue. The characters are pretty one dimensional at the moment. They’re character types more than anything and we’ll see if they can be anything more than that.
It’s clear that this is geared towards children since it’s really not that good. I mean the writing is just so-so, but nothing worse than you’ll find at just about any publisher. And really I have no problem with it being for kids. This isn’t all-ages, it’s a kid’s comic book and if I were a kid, again I would probably really like it and want to read more. That’s a great thing to do. Comics as a whole continue to try and make stories that are for everyone, but really they’re either for adults or children. They rarely are for both and instead of wasting a lot of time trying to be for both, I wish there were more comics like this that read like an afternoon cartoon and had the art to back it up as well. The simple fact is, I’ll probably read the second issue just because I like the kids cartoon feel to it.
The art is again, not the greatest. It’s strong and very consistent, but there’s a lack of detail to the overall world and especially to the character’s faces. When they’re suited up and riding space horses, the series shines, but that’s not the entire issue. The coloring is decent. It could definitely be used to add more detail to the characters and world without it getting into a “mature” look and tone, but it again captures that afternoon cartoon look and I’m really okay with that.
At this point I should mention that I do know that this is based on a cartoon, but it was not one I was familiar with or had ever watched. I’m sure that some people will have a difference of opinion on the book because of nostalgia; either positive or negative, but for me this was a good first experience with the property.
You have a lot of details on what this book is. It’s a little like Green Lantern and Bravestar. It reads and looks like a kids cartoon and makes no effort to appeal to adults. At this point you have to decide if these are good things to you or if they’re bad. For me, they’re pretty damn good. It doesn’t make the issue amazing, but it did make it entertaining and that definitely surprised me.
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Saber Rider and the Star Sheriffs #1 Writer: Mairghread Scott Artist: Sendol Arts Publisher: Lion Forge Comics Price: $2.99 Release Date: 3/16/16 Format: Mini-Series; Digital
Rosalind is your typical precocious young woman, above the grime of her surroundings. Set apart from others by her look and demeanor. She dresses wildly inappropriately for her expected gender role. In fact, she looks like an Assassin's Creed side character. This is actually quite appropriate given her special origin, an origin full of intrigue and betrayal, drama, tentacles, and tragedy. She seems very fond of her sword, as well. The books final moments indicate she's need it.
That’s nothing new. It’s not really something I find interesting instantly because it’s all about the story surrounding the immortality that’s actually interesting. Someone being immortal isn’t enough to care about them or a story. The problem I had is that the way the comic ends and the way it begins are inconsistent. When you show the ending first the goal is to work your way to that same point and you better be accurate. What Doesn’t Kill You, isn’t accurate. I can see where maybe some blood on our main character was colored differently in the open, but the fact remains there’s no blood on him or anywhere in the scene, but by the time we finish the comic and get to the scene just before the open… blood everywhere. Why they chose not to show any of the blood is beyond me since everything is out of context and we’d have no idea why he had blood on him until the end.
That being said, I am glad it exists, if for no other reason than the art. McKeever’s visual direction remains par excellence for the iconic artist, who absolutely deserves his storied rep in the field. His work in Pencil Head may be narratively vacant to outsiders, but artistically it is this perfect mix of endearing and hideous; a beautifully warped tapestry of tight lips and gaping, toothy maws, where uncomfortable intimacy is actually a plus. Pencil Head affords a weird dichotomy that way.
The writing is actually pretty damn good. It’s simple and straightforward with its approach. Sometimes the character narrates, other times there’s a 3rd person narration. Both are very strong and writer/artist/creator Desmond Reed switches back and forth to keep it from all feeling the same. The last thing you want in a weird graphic novel if for it to feel like the first page has been stretched to the last page and thankfully that’s not the case here. The stories are strange and I liked how basically everyone in the book was a type of person that could A-sexually reproduce more people exactly like themselves.
Issue #7 has a number of twists and turns, not all of which landed, mainly because so little of the preceding six issues have stuck with me. I am well aware this is as much my fault as a reader as it is the comic's, but I found myself un-interested in re-immersing myself in The Spire. As various factions enact their plans, reveal secret pendants, and double cross one another, I realized there was no character who's fate I was anxious to know.
The second story is a bit Mad Max inspired which is a tired idea at this point. It’s not even because of the new movie, it’s just a tired idea that seems to inspire stories over and over. The slight difference here is that there’s a bit of Tank Girl in the inspiration as well. We meet some dudes on the run from some other dudes and they’re forced to call the Valkyrie. She’s a woman with a Mohawk and two skulls covering her booby bits. The story is okay. What didn’t work for it was the exact thing that worked for “The Forebearer”, the narration. It’s all serious for the most part, but then it suddenly starts cracking jokes and it felt to similar to the previous story, but not as strong. Simply put it needed a different narrative voice and style to make it stand out. The art was the best of the issue. Clean and thick line work. It looked good in black and white, but it could easily be colored as well. The Valkyrie had an iconic design and from the looks of it this story will continue.
Maddeningly, however, only Damien can hear this voice in the recording, making his friends, family and the police dismiss him as crazy. As Damien slinks ever more deeply into delusion and depression, the only things keeping him going are his friend, Jude, who knows more than he is letting on, and an unnamed apparition in white, who visits Damien in a hallucination to tell him that he knows where Jordan is, and more importantly, who took him.
The story is okay. There are a few issues and the first is that while Greeves does some shitty things his crew really hammers home the fact that he’s a bastard or asshole, more than the story does. That and the first scene with the princess is just bad. It’s supposed to be innocent enough, they’ve had sex and he makes a joke saying she shouldn’t put her pants back on. The problem is, we don’t have the context of her having runaway with Greeves and instead it looks like a kidnapping. That wouldn’t be as much of a problem if the art matched the cheeky nature of the scene. Instead she has a serious look on her face like she was just forced to do something she didn’t want to. Later we see how lovey dovey she is, but the story could have used some of that in the beginning instead of leaving her silent. Her silence comes across as fear and instead of finding Greeves a cheeky bastard, he comes across as downright evil. Which clearly isn’t the intention and the rest of the story establishes that, but I can see other readers really misinterpreting this scene based solely on the art and the fact that she’s given no dialogue to help the situation be more understandable.
For me the story really ends up being about a world war. We see several different soldiers from different sides of the war and see other civilizations get caught up in the war as well. In the end, war is hell. The back of the books says it’s a fable of man vs nature which I can kind of see, but I think that a lot of the nature aspect is lost in the war.
A quick segue if I may: have you ever heard of non-Newtonian fluids? They possess qualities of matter that allow them to occupy both a solid and liquid state instantaneously/simultaneously. That’s kind of like what the artwork is comparable to in Circuit-Breaker: a non-Newtonian smorgasbord of constant departure from any one specific artistic medium. Throughout the issue there are strong elements of Japanese anime being interlaced with nostalgic components of classic ‘Sunday paper’ cartoons that instill a feeling of indeterminacy where constancy is required. Not only does the drawing feel rushed, but the characters are prone to going ‘off-model’ making it hard for the reader to form a true image of what’s happening, when and to whom.
One downside in the characterization of the lead trio is that Veronica still suffers a great deal from the classic ‘poor little rich girl’ trope. My hope is that future issues give her a chance to rise above and show why the audience should care about her desire of Archie. If Mark Waid puts forth more of the subtle addition of further character traits he has with others than Ronny could rise above her designer dresses and stretch limousines.