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CRUDE #6 & 7
($1.00 ppd each or trade from Michael Joyal/ 2-465 Beresford AV / Winnipeg, MB / R3L 1J4 / CANADA.
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Review by Steve Keeter
Well, I'll say this:
Crude isn't exactly the most uplifting comic you'll read this month. Issue 6 is the depressing story of a man who was raped when he was younger, and the effect it still has on him and his family years later. #7 is a look into the darker side of life in the city during a particularly drab and hopeless day. There's no real story at all in the issue, it's just a disjointed look at different events, and we see a clock on every other page that advances as the hours go by (a neat touch, kind of reminiscent of
High Noon, although that movie at least had a real story.) It probably would have helped if the author spent more time on one or two individual stories, rather than just brief glimpses of random incidents and nothing to really engage the reader. In both issues (#6 written and drawn by Michael Joyal, #7 by Michael Gushue), there is some skillful wordplay, in such passages as "teeth clicking in staccato rhythms matching their beating hearts" and "a hard yellow sun gives light to this world; sitting in a cloudless blue sky." The artwork is good too, sort of grittily realistic. The two artists have similar styles, Gushue is a bit tighter in the inking department. Personally, I prefer something a little more optimistic, but that's no negative indictment of the material. Bottom line:
Crude is depressing, but pretty well done, and if you like this sort of dark view of life, you'll likely enjoy this comic.
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