Comics
[Comic Book Review] “Rat Queens” #8 Wants To Fuck With You
First, let me admit my bias: I love Rat Queens. I have the T-shirt, I did an interview with the creators on my own site, I drove up to New York for the D20 Burlesque Show, my phone autosuggests “Dave” when I type “Orc,” and I have a quarter sleeve tattoo. So it would be impossible to pretend that this review is an impartial one. However, as a (possibly insane, obsessive) fan, I love this series because it is great. It is well written, it is funny, it is beautiful. If it stopped being any of those things, you can bet I would have a problem with it. I’m not cutting this series any breaks, because I love it so much.
WRITTEN BY: Kurtis J. Wiebe
ART BY: Roc Upchurch
PUBLISHER: Image
PRICE: #3.50
RELEASE: October 1, 2014
Reviewed By Katy Rex
All that said, oh my goodness. Issue #8, debuting on Oct 1, is mostly a Violet origin story. More than that, though, it hints at a Rat Queens origin story. Wait, you say. What about that cliffhanger? What do you mean, origin story? Sorry, folks. Kurtis J. Wiebe is fucking with you. And if you’re like me, you won’t even be mad about it. Sure, the issue after the “most epic cliffhanger to date” is a flashback, leaving you on the edge of your seat for another month. But this issue gives Violet more depth and character, it puts her temper into context, and it explains (at least a little) what the deal was with Barrie a few issues ago. Plus, it gives us the slightest little hint about the name “Rat Queens.”
Roc Upchurch, who apparently doesn’t want to have any free time, does the colors, the pencils, and the inks. The colors in this issue are phenomenal. There are panels, like the one below, where details like Barrie and Violet’s eyes speak volumes about siblinghood (the same eye color) and resentment. Some of the panels, however, suffer from a lack of detail. In contrast to the single page portrait of Vi on page 2, the following splash features inset panels with characters with no faces. This lack of detail isn’t present through most of the book, but it is slightly off-putting. On the other hand, the depth of detail in the shaving scene later makes the moment truly heartwarming.
If you’re trade-waiting on this series, you’re missing the letters page, which is your usual collection of cosplays, fan art, and love letters—but this issue, we get to see Kurtis’ new daughter, Willow Kate, and we get a recipe for a new “vomit inducing, blood poisoning [alcoholic] beverage,” dubbed “Betty’s Candy Coated Dreams.”
Be sure to pick this issue up today!
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Katy Rex writes comics analysis at endoftheuniversecomics.com, comicsbulletin.com, and bloody-disgusting.com. She also writes scholarly articles for various academic journals. She really likes butt jokes, dinosaurs, and killing psychos and midgets in Borderlands 2. She has a great sense of humor if you’re not an asshole.
IDW Dark and Paramount recently joined forces to launch limited comic book tales set in the worlds of Smile and A Quiet Place, and we’ve learned today that they’ll continue hanging around in those franchise universes with two brand new limited series tales.
Entertainment Weekly has exclusively revealed this afternoon that IDW Dark’s Any Given Smile debuts in September, while A Quiet Place: Rising Tides arrives in November.
First up, from writer Stephanie Williams and artist Pablo Collar, Any Given Smile puts a football-themed twist on Parker Finn’s successful Smile movie franchise.
The five-part limited series is “set in January 1995, during the American Arena League football championship game in St. Augustine, Florida. The rising superstar of the Sharks, backup quarterback Dupree, is feeling the pressure from his teammates, the fans, and also the city’s gambling underworld, to whom he owes a considerable debt. Meanwhile, a sports journalist investigates a string of suicides that may be connected to the big game. At the very least, they are connected to a sinister entity that preys on the minds of its victims.”
From writer Declan Shalvey and artist Luke Sparrow, A Quiet Place: Rising Tides will also be a five-issue limited story. The comic book tale “brings the creatures to the Florida Keys, where a father-daughter duo attempt to survive on water in a houseboat.”
EW further details, “This tense family reunion coincides with the arrival of the vicious creatures that hunt through sound. Grace and her dad find safety on the open ocean, but she’ll have to make landfall sooner or later; the father’s oxygen tank and their supplies are running low, while a hurricane swiftly approaches.”
Learn more about both comic books over on Entertainment Weekly.
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