February Comics Roundup

Critical Millennium

Critical Millennium: The Dark Frontier
by Andrew E. C. Gaska and Daniel DussaultCritical Millennium is a strange mix of juvenile comics tropes (particularly regarding the art used to depict women in the book) and a proposal about how we might end up heading into the stars to explore the universe.  A few thoughts

• The style of the art is solid and intriguing, a blend of Blade Runner and Ben Templesmith.
• The storytelling is fragmented in a way that works okay, but the conflicts that arise are generally predictable or unbelievable, and not much in between, alas.
• I would probably be willing to read future installments if I happened across them at the library, but as far as I can tell, this series never went any further.

Sunny Side Down

Sunny Side Down: A Collection of Tales of Mere Existence
by Lev Yilmaz

Like many indie comics writers, Lev Yilmaz is depressed and sad, and his comics are about that.  That said, I didn’t find much else to grab onto in this collection.  The art isn’t provocative, the depression isn’t all that inspiring or interesting, and the tales are relatively limited in scope.  I feel like Yilmaz’s work falls somewhere in tone between Charles Schultz, Chris Ware, and Ivan Brunetti.  But Ware brings poignancy and artistic prowess, Schultz brings ennui and biting social commentary, and Ivan Brunetti takes depression and self-immolation to intense extremes; Yilmaz does not achieve any of these.  I guess the closest related work I can see is Peter Bagge, but even Bagge’s work has a certain mania to it that Yilmaz doesn’t achieve.

I’d recommend collections by any of the above writers over this one.