Pages

Showing posts with label Chip Zdarsky. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chip Zdarsky. Show all posts

Monday, December 30, 2019

Spider-Man: Life Story

A friend recommended Spider-Man: Life Story by Chip Zdarsky and Mark Bagley to me a few months ago.  I didn't think the graphic novel was due out for awhile, but ended up pleasantly surprised when I found it at the library.  I don't think I've ever read a Spider-Man story before, so I wasn't remotely sure what to expect.

Spider-Man: Life Story follows the life of Peter Parker starting as a teenager trying to find his way in the 1960s all the way through until 2019.  Each issue (or chapter in the graphic novel) tells a story from a different decade of Peter's life.  Peter grapples with whether or not he should enlist in the Vietnam War, trying to balance work (both as Spider-Man and as a scientist and later businessman) and friends/family life (he has two children)through the decades, being pulled thinner and thinner as more and more things start demanding his time.  I wasn't really sure how I felt about the story at the beginning, but by the end I quite liked the story that Zdarsky and Bagley told (and the alternate world history that evolved from the presence of superheroes)..

Saturday, March 12, 2016

Sex Criminals: One Weird Trick

I was talking at work with a friend about awesome comics and she recommended Sex Criminals to me.  So I took out volumes 1 and 2 from the library, and finally read Volume 1: One Weird Trick today.  It tells of Suzanne and Jon, two people who, when they orgasm during sex, end up freezing time.  So they decide to use their power to rob a bank.  Suzanne's father died in that bank, and Jon works there (but hates his job and his boss).  They'e decided to rob it to save the library Suzanne works at.  But unknown to them, there are more people out there like them (the Sex Police), who want to stop them from committing any crimes (I think it was to stop others from finding out about people who can stop time through sex).  It's an interesting concept, but the story didn't really grab me (truth be told, I almost didn't finish it, but decided I might as well since I was already halfway through the book).  I'm sure that Volume 2: Two Worlds One Cop will be giving more info about the sex cops, but I don't think I care enough to keep reading. 

Edit: Looking on Goodreads 3 star reviews, looks like a lot of people felt the same way I did: this book was kind of meh.  The premise is intriguing, the pictures are beautiful, but it was hard to care, even though the characters were interesting enough (although they didn't seem to have any connection beyond "omg you can freeze time too?").  Someone also made a great point about how the book treats sex workers - there was a fourth wall breaking moment that gets shut down because of the porn star's name, which was very unfortunate.  All these reviews said they'd keep reading though because the premise was intriguing enough.  I'm still thinking I won't be because I really don't care enough about the story.