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Review: Loveless Vol. 1: A Kin of Homecoming
Loveless Vol. 1: A Kin of Homecoming
Written by Brian Azzarello
Art by Marcelo Frusin
Published by DC Comics/Vertigo. $9.99 USD
A Kin of Homecoming...did you read that as A KIND of Homecoming the first time? So what we have is kind of a pun here, making the definition of kind as something borderline or dubious--not really much of a homecoming--into something that more clearly foreshadows that this homecoming will involve the reunion of kin, family. I do it less now, especially now that I'm not doing my column and having to come up with different titles for it each week, but I love puns and wordplay. And yet I didn't like this one. It doesn't sound right on the tongue, "a kin of homecoming." It doesn't work because it's not playing off a well-known phrase like "round the bend" or "bats in the belfry." "A kind of homecoming" doesn't mean anything to me except as a vague reference to a U2 album track, "A Sort of Homecoming," which led off 1985's THE UNFORGETTABLE FIRE. You could call it "The Unforgiveable Fire" and it would mean more to people, at least of a certain age.
What I'm getting at is that Azzarello tries to hard to be clever, and while a slightly awkward trade paperback title is not that big a deal, this tendency comes up again and again in what is clearly meant to be a startling, sexy, bloody Western on the order of the HBO series Deadwood. In fact, the back cover promotes it as a cross between the series and a Sergio Leone film--good to cover your bases with Western touchstones.
The Leone comparison is apt enough--the protagonist Wes Cutter is an antihero given to constant bloodshed in the name of a simple, almost absurd purpose: he wants the house and land seized by the Union given back to him, or he'll take it by any means necessary. By his side to offer support in the form of a second gun or a ready vagina is a faithful, unbelievably sexy wife, Ruth. There's some backstory that establishes a long-simmering hatred on the part of Wes' no-good brother, who loved Ruth first, so we know there will be a confrontation to come. Add to that another enemy in a bad-ass black solider and an appealing plot twist whereby Wes smartens up a bit and joins the Union in order to earn his house back and take the heat off, and Azzarello is in fine form as far as plotting goes. Frusin remains a very close second as Azzarello's best collaborator, just after Eduardo Risso, expertly blending sex and violence, passion and dead eyes. There's a good deal to recommend. But Azzarello constantly trips himself up trying to be David Milch or Aaron Sorkin with characters spouting puns or instant jokes on what another character just said. A Confederate comes upon a free black man and says to his friends, "Looks like we got ourselves a candidate for erection!", meaning they're going to hang him, a play on "candidate for election" that unfortunately calls to mind a gang rape definition when coming from a character speaking to a group of men about one defenseless other man. Wes, though I think we're supposed to see him as a hair-trigger, right-and-wrong simple man in changing, morally clouded times, frequently lets loose with witticisms like this one, to Union soldiers as he holds a gun to one soldier's head: "Now, 'less you don' mind the idea of yer friend here never havin' another one, you will remove your Yankee self not jus' from my porch...but my land as well." See, they better not get any ideas, because then he'll shoot the soldier's brains out, thereby negating the possibility of future thought, and...yeah. It's a mite annoyin', ain't it? If Azzarello can relax and concentrate on the story and the characters instead of the wordplay, this book could be a winner.
Written by Brian Azzarello
Art by Marcelo Frusin
Published by DC Comics/Vertigo. $9.99 USD
A Kin of Homecoming...did you read that as A KIND of Homecoming the first time? So what we have is kind of a pun here, making the definition of kind as something borderline or dubious--not really much of a homecoming--into something that more clearly foreshadows that this homecoming will involve the reunion of kin, family. I do it less now, especially now that I'm not doing my column and having to come up with different titles for it each week, but I love puns and wordplay. And yet I didn't like this one. It doesn't sound right on the tongue, "a kin of homecoming." It doesn't work because it's not playing off a well-known phrase like "round the bend" or "bats in the belfry." "A kind of homecoming" doesn't mean anything to me except as a vague reference to a U2 album track, "A Sort of Homecoming," which led off 1985's THE UNFORGETTABLE FIRE. You could call it "The Unforgiveable Fire" and it would mean more to people, at least of a certain age.
What I'm getting at is that Azzarello tries to hard to be clever, and while a slightly awkward trade paperback title is not that big a deal, this tendency comes up again and again in what is clearly meant to be a startling, sexy, bloody Western on the order of the HBO series Deadwood. In fact, the back cover promotes it as a cross between the series and a Sergio Leone film--good to cover your bases with Western touchstones.
The Leone comparison is apt enough--the protagonist Wes Cutter is an antihero given to constant bloodshed in the name of a simple, almost absurd purpose: he wants the house and land seized by the Union given back to him, or he'll take it by any means necessary. By his side to offer support in the form of a second gun or a ready vagina is a faithful, unbelievably sexy wife, Ruth. There's some backstory that establishes a long-simmering hatred on the part of Wes' no-good brother, who loved Ruth first, so we know there will be a confrontation to come. Add to that another enemy in a bad-ass black solider and an appealing plot twist whereby Wes smartens up a bit and joins the Union in order to earn his house back and take the heat off, and Azzarello is in fine form as far as plotting goes. Frusin remains a very close second as Azzarello's best collaborator, just after Eduardo Risso, expertly blending sex and violence, passion and dead eyes. There's a good deal to recommend. But Azzarello constantly trips himself up trying to be David Milch or Aaron Sorkin with characters spouting puns or instant jokes on what another character just said. A Confederate comes upon a free black man and says to his friends, "Looks like we got ourselves a candidate for erection!", meaning they're going to hang him, a play on "candidate for election" that unfortunately calls to mind a gang rape definition when coming from a character speaking to a group of men about one defenseless other man. Wes, though I think we're supposed to see him as a hair-trigger, right-and-wrong simple man in changing, morally clouded times, frequently lets loose with witticisms like this one, to Union soldiers as he holds a gun to one soldier's head: "Now, 'less you don' mind the idea of yer friend here never havin' another one, you will remove your Yankee self not jus' from my porch...but my land as well." See, they better not get any ideas, because then he'll shoot the soldier's brains out, thereby negating the possibility of future thought, and...yeah. It's a mite annoyin', ain't it? If Azzarello can relax and concentrate on the story and the characters instead of the wordplay, this book could be a winner.
Posted by ChristopherAllen at 10:24 PM [Link to this post]
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