My Weekly Book

Surrogates - Christopher Golden, Christian Zanier et al
Strange Bedfellows - Christopher Golden, Tom Sniegoski et al

I’m really enjoying this series of Angel stories published by Dark Horse Comics. So far I’ve read the two above plus Earthly Possessions which is the next in the series (but which I haven’t bought yet). I’m always impressed with the way that the television show translates so well to the comic book medium and I like the way the stories in these two volumes pick up on similar themes to the series - despite the writers and artists having seen very little of it before the comics went into production. There is a lovely consistency about the colouring - purples, greys, blacks and browns that give a nice noir feel to the proceedings. Here we see various artists’ interpretations of Cordelia, Wesley, Angel and Doyle. Cordelia is, for my money, the one that translates best to the comic book medium despite often having little or no resemblance to Charisma Carpenter. Like the Buffy comics, so much depends on the dialogue making the jump to the page - in everything I have read so far, including these stories, that seems to have happened.

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The choice of subject matter is good too - fairly classic PI stuff given that little cross-genre twist (horror, of course, in this case) that distingishes all of Joss Whedon’s work. Here we have a fertility clinic with its own demonic agenda, some vampire hookers trying to stay undercover despite the best efforts of one of their number, a tryst with Dennis, Cordelia’s ghostly room-mate and Angel’s quest to help a woman in an abusive marriage - where everything is not as it seems. Not requiring enough involvement from me to count towards the 50 Book Challenge but still a thoroughly enjoyable read. Recommended.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 29th, 2006 at 2:40 pm and is filed under 2006 - Also read. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.