Page 45 Review by Stephen
“Okay, this looks bad.
“Really… really bad.
“But believe it or not, it’s only the third most-terrible idea I’ve had today and today I have had exactly nine terrible ideas.”
Oh, Clint. Every idea you have is terrible.
Comedy crime with an eye for design so sharp that this is the only superhero book we have ever allowed in our window or made Page 45 ComicbookOf The Month. Partly because it’s not even a superhero book – it’s a comedy of manners - but mostly it’s Aja’s design, and this is all four volumes in one.
There’s a charming use of flesh and purple tones, and a thrilling deployment of stark black and white with plenty of wide-open space. In one instance a newspaper clipping smuggles in the creator credits; in another the only mask in this entire series so far makes for a belly-laugh moment you may have heard whisper of. I’m not going to steal the fun from you. Here’s a Daily Bugle headline instead:
“EVERYTHING AWFUL
“Oh God Somebody Do Something”
Fraction’s timing is immaculate. At least three of these stories kick off in the middle, at the height of yet another monumental disaster. The one quoted above then proceeds to count down through each of Clint’s increasingly idiotic ideas until he’s left in a mess worthy of Oliver Hardy. Thank goodness for Kate Bishop, then – the younger, female Hawkeye – who’s smarter, sassier and infinitely more savvy, so pulling Clint’s occasionally naked ass out of the fire
“Tell you what, if I die, you can have the case. It’s good for travel.”
“Think I have quite enough of your baggage already, thanks.”
Here’s some of what I wrote of the first issue before the spying, the lying and the videotapes arrived. Before Clint’s sex-drive got him into the coolest comic car chase I can recall, complete with some old trick arrows he really should have found time to label before dipping his wick.
By his own admission Clint Barton can be more than a little juvenile. The man with the hair-trigger temper and mouth to match has a long history of knee-jerk reactions. But for all his sins, this totally blonde bowman and relative outsider has a heart of gold and a social conscience to boot. So when those who have taken him in – the neighbours he shares communal barbeques with on hot summer nights on the roof of their tenement building – fall under threat of mass eviction, Clint can’t help but act on impulse, and you just know it’s going to go horribly, horribly wrong.
It’s a first-person narrative with a grin-inducing degree of critical, objective detachment. It dashes frantically, nay recklessly, backwards and forwards in time with little-to-no hand-holding, as Clint watches yet another badly laid plan precipitate a cycle of ill-aimed, flailing thuggery. At its centre lies the plight of a battered mongrel which Barton fed pizza to in order to win the dog over. But now it’s in trouble.
Now, there is a natural affinity if ever I read one.
Book Two:
A grin-inducingly inventive comedy crime caper, full of humanity and accessible to all: you don’t need to have read a single Marvel Comic in your life.
It’s a series about selflessly standing up for and helping others, starring the one guy who cannot help himself – in either sense.
At one point he’s caught snogging a new flame by a) his girlfriend b) his ex-girlfriend and c) his ex-wife, all at the same time.
Also:
“Whoa, man, you look like hell.”
“Walked into a door. That, uh, proceeded to beat the hell out me.”
Clint seems to have spent the entire series covered in plasters.
He’s also spent the series in a line of personalised clothing like the H hat nodding back to his old mask, and the purple target t-shirt. As to Kate, she’s decked herself out in a variety of purple shades which she’s perpetually pulling down to glare her elder in the eyes with long-suffering disdain.
So yes, let us talk more about David Aja’s design which – with Hollingsworth’s white – fills the comic with so much light. His tour de force is the issue told entirely from dog Lucky’s point of view, wordless except for those basics that the mutt might understand. Instead his day is spent interpreting the world around him through sound, smell and association. This daily prowl / inspection is conveyed by Aja in maps of connected symbols worthy of Chris Ware of RUSTY BROWN, BUILDING STORIES, JIMMY CORRIGAN etc, and there is a seemingly throwaway moment when an absence of both sound and smell - where both should be there - proves puzzling. It is, in fact, the key.
Particularly impressive during that sequence is the absence of almost any anthropomorphism. Instead it’s all symbols and skeuomorphism as the dog goes about its daily business (and indeed business).
