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Friday Recommendation: Girls

By | August 28th, 2009
Posted in Columns | % Comments

While putting together this entry, I came across another entry that was suspiciously similar to mine. Rather than delete it and start over, I decided to let you in on treat. This blogs first ever DOUBLE RECOMMENDATION. Now you know you have to read it. But don’t believe me, read this first. Especially since I liked it more than Matt.

Every so often, there are books that defy genre. They pick and choose what they like from each style, taking what they like, discarding the rest, and ultimately create something that is totally different from anything you’ve ever read before. And one of these books happens to be a mish mash of sci-fi, horror, and gender politics that goes to places that I couldn’t dream of before.

It all starts with a bad night in a small town. The “hero” of our story (I use the term loosely, this is more of an ensemble piece than anything.), Ethan, is tossed out of a bar, and one the way home, he encounters a woman on the road. She’s like any other girl, only she’s naked. And extremely attractive. So he does what any guy would do, he takes her home. He tries unsuccessfully to find out where she came from, and why she was nude, and injured. What follows is something usually reserved for adolescent male fantasies. She beds him on the spot.

Now, Ethan had been long suffering the demise of his relationship to his girlfriend, who also lives in this small town, called “Pennystown.” So he of course welcomes the chance to have at it with a girl who is unearthly beautiful. The shame is, she was.

The next morning, he leaves to contact the local sheriff regarding the mysterious guest he has in his home. He returns to find giant eggs hatching identical copies of the stranger he slept with only hours beforehand. Let me repeat that for effect. GIANT EGGS. And these new copies attacked any female they saw.

In the midst of finding this bizarre discovery, they find even more curiosities, from a giant reflective dome surrounding the entire town, to a sperm-like creature in one of the local farms, a rather unpopular family who is initially blamed for the horrors befalling Pennystown.

The Luna Bros. are mad geniuses. If you’ve ever read any of their work, you’ll know they will put the characters in situations where you have zero idea how it could get any worse. Then it does. Every issue puts you through the ringer, only to be topped by another ghastly revelation that haunts you to your very core. The artwork is always spot on, and when there is a shocking revelation, you can feel it on the character’s faces. It’s not done in an overly dramatic way, it’s done in a way that calls upon real people. And that’s important because that’s just who these characters are; real people with real problems that are put into one horrible situation after another. And it certainly helps that Jonathan Luna is one of the best artists in the field, with a truly unique style to his art. Comparatively, the scripts equally fantastic. You feel the emotion coming from the characters mouths and truly empathize with them all, from the henpecked old man to the hen doing the pecking, you can truly understand their motivations, no matter how much you disagree with them.

I in particular have never been so connected to a book in a long time. I read this while on my break at work, and I started yelling at characters for the actions they took. From killing a fellow survivor (oh yes, there will be blood. And lots of it) to taking the fall for someone else’s actions, they’re all realistic portrayals of people in danger.

Speaking of unique, The Luna Bros. are a tandem unlike any other nowadays because everything is a collaboration between them. From the plot to the layout, both of them have a say in how the book is put together. It’s also important to point out that this is only their second title ever, and their first epic of such magnitude. It also achieved something that I don’t think any other team has done. The entire run came out on time with no interruptions and zero delays. You can find the entire series(it lasted 24 issues, and runs in 4 trades) at your LCS or on amazon.


//TAGS | Friday Recommendation

Gilbert Short

Gilbert Short. The Man. The Myth. The Legend. When he's not reading comic books so you don't have to, he's likely listening to mediocre music or watching excellent television. Passionate about Giants baseball and 49ers football. When he was a kid he wanted to be The Ultimate Warrior. He still kind of does. His favorite character is Superman and he will argue with you about it if you try to convince him otherwise. He also happens to be the head of Social Media Relations, which means you should totally give him a follow onTwitter.

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