More Than We Seem #6
Posted on August 15, 2002
A comic with a definite swagger, this; and fine wordsmithery, and stylish illustration, and a production and attitude that demand to be taken seriously. It's frustrating then the fact that it provides impenetrable work that casts the casual reader in role of detached gate-crasher, is not remotely satisfying, and on this evidence, seems to lack any notion of the importance of focusing theme. For all its impressive craft and ambition, ultimately issue six simply has nothing to say.
The publication opens and closes with text-heavy pieces: the first a series of plodding descriptive passage; the last a plodding dialogue - and both back-dropped with superfluous collage of images. Nicely written, nicely designed, but no less a kind of onanism.
The main presentation, a Trojan strip, is less of a slog however; but with occasional disorientating panel layouts, with the utilisation of two art styles, with an inventive but disruptive balloon sequencing, and with the cold, mechanical presence of computer lettering, it provides twitchy, uncomfortable read that leaves one slightly irritated.
Though commendable to create work with a mature audience in mind, epilepsy sufferers beware: MTWS attempts to muster complexity through use of prelude, interlude, sub-plot, prologue, epilogue, purpleslog - at the expense of a stretch of actual story to involve both the casual and devoted reader alike. And of course, the irony is that there are obvious talents gathered here. But for the moment however - with this my first glimpse - More Than We Seem is less than the sum of its parts. The pieces are in places.
A comic with a definite swagger, this; and fine wordsmithery, and stylish illustration, and a production and attitude that demand to be taken seriously. It's frustrating then the fact that it provides impenetrable work that casts the casual reader in role of detached gate-crasher, is not remotely satisfying, and on this evidence, seems to lack any notion of the importance of focusing theme. For all its impressive craft and ambition, ultimately issue six simply has nothing to say.
The publication opens and closes with text-heavy pieces: the first a series of plodding descriptive passage; the last a plodding dialogue - and both back-dropped with superfluous collage of images. Nicely written, nicely designed, but no less a kind of onanism.
The main presentation, a Trojan strip, is less of a slog however; but with occasional disorientating panel layouts, with the utilisation of two art styles, with an inventive but disruptive balloon sequencing, and with the cold, mechanical presence of computer lettering, it provides twitchy, uncomfortable read that leaves one slightly irritated.
Though commendable to create work with a mature audience in mind, epilepsy sufferers beware: MTWS attempts to muster complexity through use of prelude, interlude, sub-plot, prologue, epilogue, purpleslog - at the expense of a stretch of actual story to involve both the casual and devoted reader alike. And of course, the irony is that there are obvious talents gathered here. But for the moment however - with this my first glimpse - More Than We Seem is less than the sum of its parts. The pieces are in places.
US size, 36 pages, £1.95 - available from www.smallzone.co.uk