Written by Brian Wood
Illustrated by Ryan KellyThere’s nothing more exciting than college life in the big city. But complications can follow you from dark places — and not just from your boring hometown. In THE NEW YORK FIVE, Riley’s sister Angie is making a name in the Lower East Side with her new band, and now Riley is the black sheep of the family. Lona’s murky past appears to have been hiding an alarming proficiency for stalkerism, and Merissa and Ren will confront uncomfortable situations involving older men. But who is the “five” in THE NEW YORK FIVE? Find out as Vertigo reunites this cast with its stellar creative team of Brian Wood (DEMO, DMZ, NORTHLANDERS) and Ryan Kelly (LUCIFER, Local) in this standard-sized 4-issue miniseries.
The New York Four is one of the most unassuming and charming graphic novels I’ve ever had the pleasure to accidentally find in a comic shop and read on a nice train ride home. The youth it captures so vividly relates to my own life as well as speaks true of friends that I know, and I remember immediately texting people when I finished reading to tell them they had to go get it. Of course, I never in a million years imagined that there would be more to the story, so consider my surprise and excitement at the announcement at last year’s NYCC that the New York Five would be out in January!
And now it is January. So grab your iPod, put on the National (I have High Violet on myself), and check out my thoughts after the cut.
In the New York Four, we were introduced to four young girls in New York entering college, looking for work, a place in the city, and a place in life. As time went by and we followed the main heroine Riley through the first semester, we were given a tale of young love and confusion brought on by the current age of communication we live in, ultimately ending with a perfect (and arguably the only plausible) ending for the book.
However, life continues after your first semester in college no matter who you fall in love with. The adventures of Riley, Lona, Melissa, and Ren were far from over, and we come into the story as the next semester begins. Almost immediately do we notice a shift in the mood of the story, however. The first semester was generally light hearted for each character, as Melissa juggled boyfriends and Lona continued to be mysterious. Life is what happens while you’re making plans though, and now it seems that life has caught up with everyone. Melissa is always missing (and you find out why later in the story), Ren seems a bit awkward and focused on “being older,” Lona is just plain anti-social and downright weird, and Riley… well, Riley misses her sister. In a sea of weird, Riley is actually the real rock that seems to want to hold this group together – but by the end of the issue, it doesn’t look like she’s going to get off that easy.
Brian Wood is certainly known to us on Vertigo for DMZ, Northlanders and Demo, but what he should be known for is capturing life. It’s what he does in every title he writes, and the New York Four always seemed like one of the easier titles for him to write. The book is essentially the perfect read for audiences entering into college, and this is coming from a man married with children. Almost two years after the first story came out and Wood still has that wonderful grasp of youth inherent in these characters exist with. The title revels in New York life, with quirky side notes reminiscent of a title like Scott Pilgrim along with the hipster vibe of a film like (500) Days Of Summer. While New York Five doesn’t seem to be as much about love in the same way New York Four was, it does still match up perfectly to all your favorite indie artists.
Continued belowThe only element I would have any contention with is the new character, who appears only briefly in the first issue. For a four issue mini-series with 32 page issues (roughly 29 or so of which is the main story), I would’ve liked to see more of her already – but then again, that’s part of the mystery of the New York Five. With everyone in the series holding a fair amount of secrets to them, it actually makes the brief appearance both that much more intriguing and that much more aggravating in a “I want to see what happens next!” way. Having the New York Four explicitly as a graphic novel certainly spoiled us as readers in terms of the story (but, as Riley says in this issue, we’ll get back to that).
I can’t sing the praises of Ryan Kelly enough either. Under Kelly’s pen, this is New York City. Often times you read comic books that just use mildly familiar cityscapes to give the illusion of location, but that has not ever been the case for Kelly. Kelly painstakingly recreated location after location with Local and the New York Four, and there is no relenting here. Every street corner, every alley, and every bird’s eye view of this book is New York, and it’s absolutely wonderful. As much as Wood’s DMZ is a love letter to New York, Kelly’s art is what really captures New York in it’s entirety here, almost to the extent of looking at a photograph. Kelly also wonderfully captures the youthful vibe of our young heroines, perfectly matching each character to the counter culture they most subscribe to. Every girl here is different, which is what makes their friendship so interesting to watch, and under Kelly’s pen you end up looking not just at a group of young adults but rather a diverse clash of ideals and beliefs.
One can’t help but notice that ultimately, this would read better as a graphic novel like the New York Four did. However, if anything that speaks to the quality of the book because it literally is one of those stories that you don’t just want to see what happens next, you need to. The New York Five deserves to succeed in singles because the title is that good, but when comparing the first issue to the original graphic novel, you can imagine that the book will be able to fly off shelves as a collected edition – especially to younger readers. I wish that I had this comic when I was in college, because the title is a great reflection of recognizable and similar experiences. We worry that there are no good comics for younger readers, but people say that without knowing about a title like this, and in today’s modern digital age, this is the kind of book that will really help bridge the gap for incoming readers.
The New York Five #1 is a wonderful beginning, plain and simple. It’s the kind of issue that leaves you begging for more, and it does a good job of reintroducing our heroines as well as giving them all relatively new identities within the new semester. There are never enough great “slice of life” comics, and New York Five has already done a great job of filling in that missing gap in today’s market. While the New York Four was ostensibly a young love story contained within the biggest city, it’ll be very interesting to see what the New York Five ultimately ends up being about by the time it ends. Already the story screams out it’s undertones of growth towards a “it’ll be ok” tone, but as literally anything can happen at this point, only time will tell.
Final Verdict: 9.4 – Buy
