My Weekly Book

2007 Reading Challenge: Book 65

A comic series (with absolutely no connection with the similarly-named TV show) that I hadn’t come across before and another one found just lying about on the display stand at the local library. And I’m glad it was, because it was really good.

Apparently this has a little bit of comics history attached to its name, thanks to the fact its first few words are all “fuck” and it was the first one to be published under the Marvel MAX imprint that was designed for adult readers. Rumour (and Wikipedia) has it that it was actually one of the reasons this imprint was created in the first place.

The comic is pure noir, both in appearance and in storyline. It introduces Jessica Jones, a former costumed hero who gave it all up because she simply wasn’t all that good at it. Now she’s a classic hard-smoking, hard-drinking, wisecracking PI who needs no-one’s help - until, that is, things get really rough and she’s looking at a murder rap. Then it’s a question of how much help she’s prepared to accept from the superhero ‘establishment’ - and how much she’s prepared to give back.

I enjoyed the stories and the artwork - the artist makes superb use of the space on the page and there are some great effects - most notably, I thought, the chains of overlapping speech bubbles that represent quick-fire, bantering or argumentative speech. I got absorbed in Jessica’s story and I want to find out more about how it continues.

Some links:

• Avidbookreader.com: Alias vol 1
• Wikipedia: Alias (comics)
• Popimage: Michael Gaydos interview from 2001
• Ink Destroyed My Brush review
• The Comics Journal: 5,137 Pages of Brian Michael Bendis
• Fractal Matter: Alias, The Pulse and Jessica Jones

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 12th, 2008 at 7:09 pm and is filed under 2007 reading challenge. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.