Review: Sugarshock
The comic shop staff know me better than I know myself, as a copy of Joss Whedon's Sugarshock showed up in my bag without any effort at all on my part. When I asked what it was, I was told they simply thought I'd be "into it." I am, though I'm a little surprised it qualified for an Eisner.
Sugarshock is a hyperactive, over the top story about a rock band led by a young woman who suffers from severe ADHD; called upon to save the Earth, she and her bandmates follow a linear but decidedly irrational path through a herky-jerky narrative with all the internal consistency of a music video.
Naturally, I enjoyed it.
Read on for more thoughts on Sugarshock!
One of the things Joss Whedon does - and that tends to drive people wild, in both good and bad ways - is write some seriously breezy dialogue. The guy know show to produce words that are fast on their feet and can turn on a dime. That was what friends used to sell me on Buffy when I was in college and it premiered as a TV show: "Klarion, you have got to hear these kids talk." That skill is on full display in Sugarshock as the characters rip through stream-of-consciousness patter, asides and back-and-forth banter. The lettering is extremely well done, allowing for different "voices" for different speakers and doing a remarkable job of communicating rapidity and tone.
The art work is very good in general, with strong colors, slightly cartoony styles and figures and a look that generally reinforces the informal nature of the work. This is no dark drama about important events, this is bubblegum. The art supports that without sacrificing style or skillful execution.
That said, the first time I read through it I honestly didn't like it very much. I was hoping it would contain unexpected narrative depths that would be plumbed out of nowhere, but no dice. A second read-through was much more satisfying, as I realized what the title had been trying to tell me all along: this isn't Joss Whedon crafting some dark, touching narrative quilt from scraps of cultural myth and youthful stereotypes. It's Joss Whedon celebrating that he gets to write something fun for freaking once, something cute and silly and set in its own world that isn't struggling under the weight of crafted canon and years-long reinterpretation. It is meant to be light and sweet and hyper and that it is those things is a mark of success, not failure. It isn't titled Sugarshock for nothing.
That isn't to say that this is utterly without merit. I think there's a reading of it in which it's actually a fairly highly-developed parody of the classic ramshackle space opera adventure story, with apocalyptic battles, deus ex machina and hidden royalty popping out all over the place. Imagine if Prince of Space were remade in America in the 1980's by MTV; that's what this book is like, and though that rightly suggests a shallowness to the overall work I hope that also indicates the creators are aware of both the limitations of what they're doing and its potential for fun.
And yet, an Eisner? For this? That's a little surprising. I would almost wonder if this was one of those sorry-about-last year awards, like an Oscar that goes to someone who actually deserved it for a different role in a recent, previous year and now the Academy is trying to make it up to them, but Whedon's won Eisners already for other comics of his that are, in my opinion, genuinely worthy recipients of that recognition. As a card-carrying member of The Guild Of Yet More Whedon Fanpersons Online, I'm glad I read it but I wouldn't use it to give someone else the hard sell on my dark lord. Still, Sugarshock is a lot of fun and has some great art. At $3.50 it's priced on par with any other 40-page comic and it's much more enjoyable than many of them.
Klarion
Posted to Comics, Review on 12 November 2009
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Other stuff like this: Joss Whedon, Robots With Suggested Abs, Rock 'n Roll, Sugarshock
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