What I Bought 4/2/2013 - Part 8

One of these days, I'll end these reviews. This isn't that day. In other news, it's raining again, which means the ceiling is dripping again. Hopefully it stops before I try to sleep.

Katana #1 & 2, by Ann Nocenti (writer), Alex Sanchez (artist), Claude St. Aubin (inker #2), Matt Vackey (colorist), Taylor Esposito (letterer) - I have nothing to say about either of the covers.

So Tatsu/Katana has this nifty sword, the Soultaker. Near I can tell, her husband used to wield it, but he died under somewhat vague circumstances, involving fire. And blood. As far as Tatsu's concerned, his soul is within the sword, which means they'll be taking vengeance on his killers together. That would seem to be the Sword Clan, and to that end, Tatsu's set up shop in the Japantown section of San Francisco. Her initial attempts aren't entirely successful. She managed to overcome Coil - narrowly - but the fact he knows more about her and the sword than she does seems to give him an upper hand. Her attempt to call out Sickle didn't quite work, either. She trounced all his followers, but he didn't actually fight her. Instead, he threatened to leak her identity if she didn't work with them. Tatsu figures you have to be close to someone to stab them, so she agrees.

You have to say this for Nocenti: She doesn't waste time. She's already introduced at least 5 characters I expect to be regular members of the supporting cast, from a potential boss (Nori, her landlady), to a mole (who names their son Thrust? Unless it's Gatotsu, and he just used the English translation), a couple of elder sorts, and Shun the Untouchable. Not sure if she and Tatsu will ever get any time to actually converse, but it ought to be interesting when they do.

As for Tatsu herself, she's on this interesting line between confidence and false bravado. I honestly can't tell which it is sometimes. When she attacks Thrust and harries him, insults him, that's fake. That's her trying out Batman's "scare people into talking" stuff. But when she leaps out of the crowd to challenge Sickle and his ladies, I think that's genuine. She's honestly that sure of herself, even when she knows how far she has to go. So she's overconfident, but I can't tell if that's because she doesn't realize the difficulty of the task ahead of her, or if she just doesn't care. She may figure this is something she has to do, whatever the risks to herself. So she ignores them.

As for Sanchez' art, I prefer it with St. Aubin inking. When Sanchez inks himself, he goes overboard, too many small lines, and things get muddled. The details can get buried under the shadows, especially on things at a distance, such as faces. St. Aubin smooths things out, the shadows there are go deeper, but they aren't as prevalent, so they don't threaten to overwhelm everything.

One other credit, for whomever is responsible, the sound effects. In issue 2, they seem to hang around the borders of the panels, either at the top or bottom. The laughter in the panel where Tatsu gets her second glimpse of Shun, the "swoosh" as Junko leg sweeps Tatsu, the applause when Tatsu first leaps onto the stage with Sickle, and again when the fight ends. There are very few effects in the center of panels. Maybe that's deliberate, or just chance. I like that the applause is set against a narrow line of curtains, as though they're rising on the show and the start, and descending at the end.