Wednesday 19 November 2008

Fiction

Marvel 1602 by Neil Gaiman, Andy Kubert & Richard Isanove
Parts Three - Five
I know it doesn't affect the quality of the story, but it's annoying how thin the pages are here. Clearly wanting to use glossy paper stock but wanting to keep costs down, it's all glossy but thin, making it too easy to turn two pages at once, especially as the glossiness helps them stick to each other.
As for the text itself, I'm still not certain. It occasionally falls into the usual traps of big team-ups/crossovers, especially regarding "assumed knowledge" -- for a book that looks very accessible to newcomers, due to its "fresh start"/no continuity approach, you'd think it would be free of this, but too often you feel you should know who someone is or will be.
On the bright side, a magic-based character like Dr Strange feels much more at home in a weird Elizabethan world than he would in the modern 'almost real' superhero world that the numerous film adaptations have given us. Plus, things are beginning to come together (I'd hope so too, as I'm over halfway now), and there's a very well-built cliffhanger on Part Three.

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