Every time I think I've gotten clear of public meetings, another one comes along. And the person is always angry about stuff we don't regulate, so there's absolutely nothing we can do, so the entire meeting is a waste of my time and energy.
Anyway, here's two comics from last month. Were they also a waste of my time and energy?
After Gus' failure in the mail room, he's moved to customer service, meant to weed out people making fraudulent superhero-related insurance claims before sending the worthy on to Miss Chapel. Goldberg, Rodionoff and Robson have some fun with that idea. An old lady claiming her cat is a Flerken (like Carol Danvers' cat) and ate her home. A guy claiming Loki tricked him into spending all his money on blackjack.
While all these seem entirely plausible in the Marvel Universe (well, maybe not a symbiote named Urinal Cake), they are apparently frauds and Miss Chapel is pissed Gus keeps sending them on to her. It's unclear to me how Gus was supposed to know this, since he was provided with no files or any sort of equipment to detect if a cat is actually an alien. Maybe that's the point. He's an intern, he gets the crappy, impossible jobs.
Either way, Gus vows to be tough and therefore doesn't believe the man who comes in claiming his family was accidentally shrunk by Ant-Man. This results in a traumatic experience for a lot of people, and Gus is on to his next position.
So, the insurance scam idea was interesting, but the book isn't really working for me. The dialogue is kind of awkward in that it feels like it's trying to be clever, but comes off stilted. Or else, "Crappy Saturday Night Light skit" idea of clever. Jokes about the lines at the DMV, I mean come on. 'I love fresh air! It's so fresh and airy!'? That's worse than something I would write, even if I was writing an idiot.
Goldberg and Rodionoff did at least cut down on the gags involving Gus compulsively eating when stressed. And Robson's art seems to fit the tone (whether intentional or inadvertent) of the writing. With the things Gus says, it feels like an act, that he's just putting on a show of being dumb as a post. Robson's art has a exaggeration in the expressions and the postures that feels like someone mugging for a camera. So at least they're a good match.
My every dozen years dalliance with Street Fighter strikes again. Apparently M. Bison died at some point, which, good. That guy was an asshole. Chun Li now runs a dojo aimed towards helping a bunch of kids who were orphaned because of Bison, which is nice. When she hears a rumor that he might not be dead, because someone swiped some gold that belonged to Bison once, she doesn't take it well. Determined to find him, she runs across a brother/sister team who insist they are taking the gold as a measure of compensation for being orphaned and experimented on by Bison. Who is still dead, so far as they know. Chun Li feels she let her anger she thought she'd put aside get the best of her and lets them go.
It's a very straightforward story. She thinks she was over her grief and anger from everyone Bison hurt, but it was a false closure because she was sure he was dead. Once there was a possibility he was still out there, the anger reemerged. Her conclusion at the end seems to be that she needed to focus on the life she's built instead of being furious about what Bison took she can't get back.
Kinnaird draws every woman like they're wearing heavy eyeliner. Really noticeable dark ring around the eyes. It sort of works for the parts where Chun Li is letting her anger get to her and being really intense, but it being there constantly is kind of distracting. Also distracting, the number of panels that seem focused on Chun Li's butt. It's nice if you're in the mood, but again, somewhat at odds with the tone of the story. There aren't really any extended fight scenes, so I can't judge his work on that score. The scattered, individual panels look solid enough.
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