Writer: Brian K. Vaughan
Artists: Paul Chadwick (p), Jose Marzan Jr. (i)
Publisher: Vertigo Comics
Plot:
The book opens by introducing us to a group of actresses who travel across the countryside performing plays in the various communities that they come across in exchange for food donations. However, we see the leader of this troupe has higher ambitions for her company, and when they stumble across an injured monkey who looks to be male, we see she is inspired to write a play about the adventures of the last man on earth.
Comments:
A rather interesting arc in that it takes us away from Yorick and his group for the first time since this series began, and we are transplanted into the middle of a group of actresses who travel around the country putting on plays for an entertainment staved populace. Now I have to say I found most of the women we were introduced to a bit abrasive as they all seem to suffer from a rather over inflated opinion of what they are doing, with only one of the group appearing to have a solid understanding of the sheer magnitude of the monumental task of what the others believe they'll be able to accomplish with their plays. However, there are also some solid moments where we see that at least some of the women haven't completely lost their grasp on reality, as there's a nice little exchange between two of the women where we see the group's leader offers up a fairly cut-and-dried bit of reasoning for why she feels the plays are so important to the future survival of the human race, and this conversation is nicely followed up upon later in the issue after an element from Yorick's world arrives in their camp. There's also a rather outlandish, but entertaining, theory presented by one of the women in the troupe about why the plague was unleashed upon humanity, and I have to say I found her rather jaded assessment of present day Hollywood's roles for women to be a pretty fair assessment.
As for the art, the book's regular artist is replaced on this arc by Paul Chadwick, and I must confess I'm not overly familiar with his work, though given the length of time he's been working on "Concrete" one certainly has to imagine he's doing something right. His work on this arc isn't the most visually exciting of work, and its sense of realism isn't as strong as the work we normally see on this book, but it holds its own quite nicely. I also have to credit the art for delivering a fairly diverse array of characters, as the women are quite easy to tell apart, and it's not simply a case of you can tell which character is which by their different hair-styles/coloring, as these woman are afforded different body types and facial structures. The scene where the women react to the discovery about the newest member of the troupe is also a fairly solid visual representation of their different personalities.
Final Word:
A pretty entertaining diversion that becomes a fair sight more engaging when an element from Yorick's world enters the book, as one can't help but be curious about what happened to drive this character out of Yorick's group, and the fairly serious injury that the character received is certainly enough to raise the eyebrows. However, the main plot element that drives this issue is the group of women who are working as a theater troupe, as we get a fairly interesting look at these women who have found a role to play in this new world, and in a fairly interesting twist we see that these women are probably better off after the tragedy as they've been given a real role to play in this new world, and the leader of this group is driven by a fairly solid survival instinct, while at the same time she is bound and determined to pull off her miracle without the intervention of men. Now I can't deny that I found the material in the latter half far more engaging, but I've had 15 previous issues to develop an attachment to elements from Yorick's world, so it's only natural I find the material that focuses on that corner to be more engaging than this new corner.
What did you think of this book?
Have your say at the Line of Fire Forum!