Let's Read Comics!

I've been collecting comics, reading some and not others, generating a backlog.  They don't take long to read, though--there's no reason I should have the latest volumes of amazing things like Nailbiter, Saga, and Rat Queens, not to mention tantalizing new possibilities like Paper Girls, Orphan Black: Helsinki, and Hexed: The Harlot and the Thief.  And stuff I've read and want to go on about--Bitch Planet!

So, let's start here: Django/Zorro, by Quentin Tarantino and Matt Wagner, which I got from Netgalley.  I'll admit that I'm starting here mostly because I don't have a lot to say about it; Django Unchained was an amazing movie in classic Tarantino fashion--take the worst bad guys you can think of and unleash an offensive amount of violence on them.  It was the best of revenge fantasy, and one of my favorite Tarantino films, I think (though I don't know if I could watch it often) partly because Jamie Foxx played Django so straight.  He wasn't a caricature or a stylized placeholder; he was a real man with nothing to lose in an impossible situation.  It was a great combination.

I was kind of hoping to find that combination of irreverence and steely practicality here, the flavor of Django, that Tarantino thing brought to the character of Zorro. But this felt like a straight Western.  It probably wasn't a bad one for that--the bad guy had a pretty cool evil plan/backstory, and Don Diego de la Vega is fun, in a fussy, flamboyant way--but there isn't much characterization, not much feeling, and not a lot of depth here.  You can hardly see characters' eyes in a single image here, which feels emblematic of how little connection I felt to the story.

It's not a bad Western.  It's a great episode of an old Zorro program. But I expected more whimsy from Zorro, and more intensity from Django.  I think I'd set my hopes too high.

But never fear!  Soon I'll bring you Princeless, Rat Queens 3, and a lot more goodies. Watch this space!