Toy Story meets Blade Runner? Got to say, most things I’ve read or watched that describe themselves as _______ meets Blade Runner have been awful… and I love Blade Runner! Perhaps the latest comic by Glen Brunswick and Image co-founder Whilce Portacio will break the mold, though.
Written by Glen Brunswick
Illustrated by Whilce PortacioLos Angeles, 2041 – it’s twenty-six years after a NASA probe brought back a strange disease causing many of our familiar toy-like objects to come to life. This is a new world order where cute and fearsome creatures fight for their right to exist in a world that fears them – Blade Runner meets Toy Story.
The amount of layers a story has varies from one to the other, but one of the most common kinds of stories you’ll see is one that works on three levels (I believe I’m stealing this from Warren Ellis and butchering it, but bear with me): first, of course, is the story itself, the events and characters taken at the most surface level reading as possible; next, you have what the creator is saying, the more obvious causes, institutes, factions, and general what-have-you that the various characters quite obviously stand for; finally, there is what the creator is really saying — the less obvious subtext that is overshadowed by the previous, more noticeable metaphor. This seems to be the model that “Non-Humans” works in: first, we have our actual story about a detective chasing down a serial killer in a world where toys have come to life; second, there is the obvious analogy between these toys who want equal rights and any other discriminated against minority; third, the true underlying theme seems to be about the control and danger of imagination. So far so good.
The problem, though, is that writer Glen Brunswick has put himself in a bit of a tricky situation by tying both of these themes to the titular Non-Humans. It isn’t particularly confusing, but it is distracting; the reader can’t help but try to find a way to attach the two themes together, even though they may very well be operating separately. On the one hand, the reader might conclude that the overarching idea is that imagination’s burden must be taken seriously, which is all well and good. On the other, one can just as logically come to the conclusion that the Non-Humans rights are quite literally imaginary — which is problematic when considering the more prominent theme of the toys as persecuted minorities. This is clearly not what Brunswick is going for, but that’s the problem with a shared symbol like this one: it makes it hard to pay attention if the story isn’t gripping enough to begin with.
All of this wouldn’t matter if the story, that first layer, was entertaining and/or interesting as a story alone. Unfortunately, it isn’t. The problems with this comic are manifold. To begin with, it is hard to tell whether it is taking itself too seriously or not seriously enough. To put it lightly, the comic’s self-professed “Toy Story meets Blade Runner” premise is a bit ridiculous, but that’s fine! I, personally, have read comics with much stranger, even sillier concepts that turned out alright in the end. Characters such as Buddy-the-Bear, a drug-slinging teddy bear, though, make it difficult to keep eyes from rolling. Maybe the toys should be portrayed in a more straight-faced manner; maybe the rest of the world should be a little bit lighter. Whatever the case, it isn’t working. On top of that, we have a horrific amount of expository dialogue — half the dialogue just seems like we are reading excerpts from Brunswick’s original pitch, only with a word balloon around it. Perhaps this is just the first issue curse, but considering the little bits of dialogue that aren’t pure information dumps read stiff and stilted, it seems unlikely that this will get better as the comic progresses. Finally, there is the paint-by-numbers storytelling: the gruff detective who works alone normally, but now has to work with a younger partner, has a divorced wife and a kid who is getting himself into trouble without his dad being there to look out for him, and, spoilers, two cases that turn out to be the same one. Yawn. I will, however, give Brunswick credit for making the twist at the end of this issue happen sooner rather than later, but the “Hey, look how surprising this is!” dialogue kills any goodwill this creative choice may have fostered.
Continued belowOften lumped together with the more popular artists of the Image revolution, Whilce Portacio has recently developed a style that stands apart from his contemporaries, many of whom are content with keeping that, oh, “unforgettable” 90’s style. That doesn’t mean this newer style of his is any good, though. Portacio’s recent comics have been a chore to read, and his work “Non-Humans” isn’t much better than, say, his recent pages of “Journey into Mystery” or “The Incredible Hulk.” It isn’t only that his style is far from aesthetically pleasing (for this reviewer, at least); there are plenty of artists’ whose work might be considered ugly, but who tell stories with images well enough that it doesn’t matter as much. Portacio’s work, though, is hard to make sense of. It isn’t even that he doesn’t know how to frame panels or where to place characters — theoretically, everything is where it should be to tell a story. There may not be any bells or whistles, but it should get the job done. So many panels in “Non-Humans” #1, though, are so poorly rendered that what should be a straight-forward shot takes a moment to puzzle out. It’s not impossible to read, by any means, but considering the rather simple story, it shouldn’t take as much effort to get through as it does.
There is one positive thing I can say about the first issue of “Non-Humans”: the price per page ratio is good. Maybe not excellent, but good. Over at Marvel, 22 and even 20-page books are commonly hitting $3.99 an issue, and while DC might be holding the line at $2.99, it’s at the expense of story pages. “Non-Humans,” though, goes beyond recent price expectations, though, and offers a twenty-nine page comic at $2.99. Sure, it’s not like, say, “Saga” #1, which was double-sized at the same price, but hey, it’s something.
“Non-Humans” succeeds in using sequential images to tell a story, and… well, the praise ends there. Unsure of whether it wants to be mature or juvenile, “Non-Humans” is difficult to read in both the textual and visual sense. Perhaps the themes will become less tangled as the story goes on; perhaps after getting his grounding with this first issue, Glen Brunswick will be able to focus his effort and tell his story in a much more enjoyable manner; perhaps Portacio will add more substance and less style. I am not sticking around to find out, though.
Final Verdict: 1.5 – It makes Small Soldiers look like The Artist.
