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Episode 1620 Talkback - Off the Racks: BBoP Rebirth #1, Betty & Veronica #1, and Faith #1
Adam_Murdough
Posts: 506
It's Ladies' Month (oh, what a month!) for Off the Racks, as the Geeks analyze three July releases featuring female protagonists: Betty & Veronica #1 from Archie, Faith (ongoing) #1 from Valiant, and Batgirl & The Birds of Prey: Rebirth #1 from DC. Plus bonus reviews, and a Muddle the Murd! (1:11:52)
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Listen here.
Comments
@Adam_Murdough, have you been reading Archie and Jughead? I have, and the plots in both books are basically the same plots we’ve seen over and over again in Archie comics for decades. To say that B&V’s plot is hackneyed is certainly accurate, but could just as easily be applied throughout the rest of the New Riverdale line, though no one seems to be complaining about it there. It’s not necessarily a negative. In fact, it’s a way of keeping the characters familiar while putting a modern spin on them.
Saying it is a common tendency for artists to overwrite is just plain wrong. I'm sure you’ve read things Mike Norton has written, and Tim Seeley, and Alan Davis, and Nick Cardy, and Will Eisner... I could go on and on. George Pérez simply writes like he talks—with a whole lot of words. I'm looking through the issue again, and Adam covered up very little of the artwork with his word balloons. He left plenty of space for the text, as most panels have little or no backgrounds. You can certainly argue that the page looks a bit cluttered because of all the word balloons, but you can’t say that Adam didn’t plan for them in his layouts. Who knows, maybe his plan was for the dialogue to replace the backgrounds so he wouldn’t have to draw as much.
I will agree, however, that at times the jokes go on too long. And I also agree that the biggest problem of the book is that Hot Dog gets more dialogue than Veronica. (On the other hand, no one gets more dialogue than Betty.) I think it’s kind of telling that the classic B&V story that ran in the back of the book is really an Archie and Reggie story, with the girls playing the victims of their practical joke—the girls are secondary characters in the backup story. But Betty is definitely the star of Adam’s story. She drives the action (what there is of it). And I'm sure Veronica will get her share of the spotlight next time out, now that her part of the plot was revealed in the last two pages of the story.
So why use Hot Dog as the narrator rather than Betty and/or Veronica, or no narrator at all? It’s hard to say without having read the entire arc. Most likely it’s simply for comic effect, and it has its moments, but I too got a bit tired of it by the end.
As for the “missing” two pages (Edit: which I'm sure aren’t actually missing, but were scripted this way from the beginning), surely the reason for this is obvious—time. Adam isn’t the fastest artist on the block. There’s a reason he’s mainly a cover artist. Here we have two figures and a doghouse illustrating two pages. That had to have saved him at least three days of penciling and inking. It’s no different than what he did for page 7, where each panel is a blown-up detail shot of the last panel of page 6. That probably saved him another couple of days. I’m of two minds when it comes to the bikini page. It’s not really a pinup page. Adam’s drawing is more modestly posed than any number of Archie comics from the past 50 years. Seriously, look through any classic Archie summer comic. There’s nothing salacious about the image in that respect. On the other hand, the story didn’t call for it, so by definition it’s gratuitous other than for a rather weak laugh. All he had to do was draw the girls in the clothes they were wearing in the issue, and no one would be complaining.
Re: @Dani’s question about the noses, they are definitely inked, but the ink lines are colored in the coloring stage. Lots of artists and colorists have been doing this for years when they don't want to indicate a hard shadow. It’s quite commonplace in Marvel and DC’s comics. You can blame the photorealism movement.
As to Adam’s ability as a writer, I’ve enjoyed things he’s written in the past—his Gen13 story for one. Maybe he’s not the best writer out there, but he’s certainly competent (and he’s better than a couple of DC writers I could name). As to whether the writing serves the story, I guess it depends on what you’re looking for from an Archie comics story. It’s supposed to be funny, first and foremost, even in this New Riverdale line, and Adam certainly tries to give us that. Sometimes he falls flat, sometimes he succeeds. Is he as good as Mark Waid? No, but then, I would say only a handful of comic writers could make that claim. Look, this is the first full-length story he’s written (that’s been published) in over ten years. We can’t cut him a little slack for a few issues while he finds his way with the characters?
Yes, I would have liked for Archie to have gotten a woman writer for this book. But they chose Adam. As I said, Adam isn't the fastest artist in the world. Odds are he won't be able to draw 12 issues a year. Maybe he’ll only be on the book for one story arc, or maybe he’ll alternate between writing and drawing one arc, then only writing the next arc. Maybe that’s why he wanted to write the book: so that he could stay in control even when he didn’t have time to draw an issue.
Overall I give the book a solid B. Or in CGS terms, a weak buy.
It's interesting how I found things that seemed to annoy Adam and Chris, rather endearing. I thought the "missing" two pages was a brilliant way to change the pace of the story and ... well, what's an Adam Hughes book without a little cheesecake? An Adam Hughes book with no cheescake is like a WWE event without someone beaten with a chair. It's like NHL without a fight. Btw, that was probably the most wholesome slice of cheesecake ever delivered.
Finally, the dog. If I remember correctly, Hughes is a fan of the breed and either has or had a sheepdog at one time.
The book is a buy for me, but I have to admit that I'm a fan of Hughes and will purchase the book as long as he's doing the art.
Haven't read Birds of Prey yet, but it is in the stack.
No interest in Faith.
Batgirl and the Birds of Prey: BUY! I wasn't that satisfied with the artwork, but I enjoyed the story and the artwork didn't take me out of it.
Faith: N/A well, I think maybe I read the first issue of the mini-series and it didn't impact me at all, so I skipped it.
Bonus Reviews: Uh, I forgot what you talked about already. Oh, Captain Kid and Animosity? CK was pretty good.
Muddle the Murd: Yeah, the wording of that first question was really bad, so I'm glad that Murd didn't get muddled. Visionaries? Hmm, I might have to investigate that one.