Joe the Barbarian

So, the first issue is out, any opinions on it? I thought it was pretty cool, but kinda... slight. I can see that if the rest of the series is gonna take place inside the kids's house, it was useful to spend all those pages to introduce the setting, but still... Sean Murphy's art looks really nice, and it kinda felt like Morrison just wanted to indluge on it. Like, was it really necessary to have a two-page splash just for the scene where the kid is at his dad's grave? Don't get me wrong, the art is gorgeous, so it's not like this is a major flaw or anything, but I guess I'm just used to Morrison writing dense comics with lots of information packed into every page. It'll probably feel different once all the issues are collected into a TPB, but as an individual issue it felt like there was not much going on.

Speaking of the actual plot, I think the setup was pretty interesting, but also a bit clichéd. I mean, you have a kid who's kinda geeky and introverted, and he's being bullied at school, and he escapes into his own fantasy world. Doesn't really sound different from hundreds of other fantasy stories, does it? And the idea of toys defending the kid's fantasy realm from a villain who is a metaphor for something outside the realm has been used before too, for example in Gaiman's A Game of You. I guess Morrison acknowledges that this has all been done before, when the kid calls his bullies "stereotypes". Let's just hope he and Murphy will pour their creative juices into building the fantasy realm, in here we saw just glimpses of it.

One more question: the series is supposed to take place in the present day, isn't it? So why does the kid have an OG Nintendo console? All the other toys looked pretty 80s too.

The note from the illustrator said something about him wanting to give the boy loads of retro toys and stuff.

I read the issue quickly yesterday. My initial impression is "Nice art, but one of Morrison's lesser works".

Interesting book- gorgeous, for one thing, and not hypercompressed like most of Morrison's stuff lately. Reminds me of Vimanarama more than anything.

Not much to comment on so far. The art is obviously gorgeous, though, although the storytelling seemed a little unclear towards the end.

Hopefully over 8 issues it'll mutate into "The Filth for Kids".

Having read the 1st and 2nd issues, my conclusion is that, aside from the art, this is Not Great.

You're not wrong.

the art is pretty fun

it's really not proving that New Toys really needed expanding from 8pp to 180 though. (Actually #2 feels more like A Game Of You tbh)

I, too, would like to judge this Morrison project one-quarter of the way in, as the one-quarter mark has historically proven to be a valid point at which to judge Morrison's projects. Perhaps I would feel differently if he would stop telegraphing his by-the-numbers dénouements right out of the gate, but I have been burned too often by his thoroughly-predictable hackery to cut him any slack at this point.

^ yeah, usually by 1/4 in you're going "WOW THIS IS JUST AS AWESOME AS THE PREVIOUS 3/16!"

what I find funny about JtH is that Tuomas' post above crystalises why I think the title is rubbish, even though Tuomas thinks JtH is at least somewhat kewl.