Can it only be a matter of weeks since Matt Fraction presented us with his slightly deranged ‘Five Fists of Science’?
Yes, yes it was, and so for fear of letting Fraction dominate this little site, we’ll keep this review of his new ongoing comic, ‘Casanova’, relatively short.
Although this first issue is double length, regular instalments of ‘Casanova’ will be in the format pioneered by Warren Ellis’ ‘Fell’ – 16 page stories, black and white art, low price. Now, while I haven’t read the Ellis book (do I look like I’m made of stupid?), this is an interesting format, one which, if combined with tight enough art, could result in dense, poppy comics.
‘Casanova’ is certainly that. Our hero (of sorts) Casanova Quinn is a gentleman thief on the run from his father and sister, both of whom are part of the international task force, EMPIRE. He’ll steal anything for anyone, even if that means kidnapping a chatty sexbot or gambling with a gestalt entity on a flying casino. Casanova wears his hair long, and his tux velvety.
‘Casanova’ is a demented 60s/70s-styled SF spy comic, in some ways deliberately retro, with a harsh edge that stops it from falling into ‘Austen Powers’ type pastiche. The world of spys and monsters in the book is surreal, but in a scary bad trip way rather than whimsical psychedelic fluffiness. It’s exciting, funny, sexy, horrid and violent.
To keep the pace up, artist Gabriel Ba draws ‘Casanova’ as a fluid succession of small-ish panels, each with a clear action or iconic moment. Characterisation isn’t subtle, but then it doesn’t need to be. There’s a lot packed into this first issue, and although future issues will be shorter the pace of this one suggests Fraction and Ba won’t have any problems fitting in a good dose of story every time.
This is the second good book from Fraction in less than a month, and he’s got some more mainstream work on the way. Hopefully he’ll be able to carry forward the demented sensibility of this, ‘Five Fists’ and his fondly remembered monkey superspy book (and ‘Casanova’ precursor) ‘Rex Mantooth’ into the mainstream with him. It’d be a shame to see him go from something as rich in difficult personality as ‘Casanova’ to churning out generic superhero waffle.
Those concerns are for another day, though. For now we’ve got ‘Casanova’, which reads like channel surfing through a dozen old action movies while too drunk to function and too hyper to sleep.
That’s a recommendation, by the way.
