Really liked the quiet scene-setting and observational illustration of the first couple of issues. Started to go downhill as the protagonist lass remained moronically ignorant of the blokes' OH SO SNEAKY getting involved in teh druqks and teh guns. The SHOCK HORROR kidnapping cliffhanger in the fourth issue was so lame I never read the fifth and final one.*
*okay this was because the comic shop is shit and never ordered it in so it didn't turn up in my flatmate's standing order, but we both agreed it was probably a lucky escape.
― kit brash (kit brash), Saturday, 20 May 2006 10:51 (nineteen years ago)
I only got the first two issues, but it seemed overrated to me.
― asdf, Saturday, 20 May 2006 23:22 (nineteen years ago)
Oh man, I was staring at this thread all day, thinking it was about Jessical Alba. I'm so dumb.
― Huk-L (Huk-L), Sunday, 21 May 2006 03:15 (nineteen years ago)
I actually enjoy the fact that the protagonist starts out looking sort of sympathetic but naive, and ultimately turns out to be totally unsympathetic.
― Douglas (Douglas), Sunday, 21 May 2006 03:16 (nineteen years ago)
Yeah, I think that the begining is really good on how, if you go to a place where you have zero contacts, you just end up falling in with whomever, and things tend to develop so that you end up liking and caring about those ppl, no matter how incompatible you actually are.
But then halfway through Carla's relationship with Oscar and Memo just becomes more and more about the politico/race cred thing, to the point where she just becomes Memo's puppet many times (which is odd, considering that she was good enough at seeing through his bs early on, which tbh didn't look very difficult either.) So at the end it sort of becomes a bit of a duh "liberal guilt = BAD!" thing, but I don't think that's ALL there is to it.
I don't think the kidnapping is really SHOCK HORROR, or supposed to be. It's just inevitable, you basically know it's coming as soon as she picks up that paper. Her weird relationship with the story as it unfolds is pretty great, I thought.
I can't imagine what it must be like reading this thing in issues, it's one of the most book-like indie comics I've ever read.
― Daniel_Rf (Daniel_Rf), Sunday, 21 May 2006 20:12 (nineteen years ago)
Perhaps it reads better in the "trade", then, where that isn't as obvious (are chapter endings considered cliffhangers? I suppose they are - "it were the marks of a gigantic hound!" etc - but there's a lot less at stake when you don't have to wait a month or so for the uncliffhangeing.)
― Daniel_Rf (Daniel_Rf), Monday, 22 May 2006 07:50 (nineteen years ago)
one year passes...
I just read the HC over the weekend, and the scene where Oscar is trying to get Carla, Memo, El Gordo, Ricardo et al is where I think the story first starts to telegraph the kidnapping. Um, "MY WHITE (RICH) FRIEND LIVES AT THIS ADDRESS, MR. CREEPY WANNABE DRUG KINGPIN, WHY DO YOU ASK?" After the first chapter (which I liked well enough), I actually preferred the turn that the story took after the several chapters of Carla's inexplicable "Oooo Memo why don j00 accept me!!" whining.
― Leee, Monday, 4 June 2007 22:44 (eighteen years ago)