Shooting Star Comics Anthology is an American publication with contributors from all over the English speaking world and boy is it ‘dynamic’! Having a long-time predilection for all things ‘sluggish’ this really wasn’t my cup of latte at all, but oh well, here goes…
First out of the bag of verbose and windy titles is an ‘Aym Geronimo and the Post-Modern Pioneers’ story called ‘Aym got Game’. Creators J. Morgan Neal and Todd Fox deliver a breezy, let’s introduce all the characters, slick from the lip kind of story that doesn’t do very much other than feature action and bad guys and snappy one liners. Y’know, popular stuff.
Continuing in the popular vein, I almost choked on my skinny-soy mochaccino as I at first thought that the indie doyen, Jessica Abel had been given a makeover by creators Jon Hook and Sinclair Elliot (like that horrific moment when you see Ally Sheedy preppied up by Molly Ringwald in ‘The Breakfast Club). But no! It’s just Fey Wilde, a witch P.I. with a badge and a gun, and star of ‘Wilde Magick’. It’s well drawn with careful attention to keeping the tension and pace going with use of angles and whatever, and it all ends with werewolves and silver bullets. And a cute oneliner.
There’s more super-vigilant action with stories such as ‘Feeling the Sting-part 2’, byScott McCullar, which contains action, vendettas and a flashback to seeing God (or is it?) and he looks a lot like Ice Cube.
In a similar mindset comes, ‘Passing in the Night’ by Sean Taylor, Lorraine Sammy and Luis Alonso, a slice of teen power kids, with a night off from fighting crime and a penchant for indulging in some hormonal action. It leaves me sighing, ‘Why can’t more boys be like the ‘guru of gases’ Mist Master? Actually, I might think it was actually kind of funny, if it weren’t so deadly dull.
Shooting Star is one of those small press comics that tries to look as much as a ‘real’ comic as possible. And I can’t argue with that, It’s just that it’s all so boring. I don’t have anything against ‘dynamic angles’, ‘in your face’ inking or even computer lettering. It’s more to the point that they’ve tried so hard to make it look professional, they’ve lost sight of what actually looks attractive. The cover is ugly, seen ‘em before action poses in sludgey colours, it just doesn’t look nice. There’s lots of talent here, that’s undeniable, it’s just really uninteresting.
And so mention must be given here to the one artist who looks completely out of place and was my favourite by far. ‘Bedbug’ by Scott Rogers looks homegrown, uses genuine pathos to provide a point to the action sequences and veers away from formulaic and overpolished scripting. “What’s your name, you look like a Stephanie to me”, “Julia.”.
And it’s hand-lettered, a sure fire way to my heart!
Well, lots of people are going to disagree with me as this comic will probably find a sizeable, mildy interested audience. For me though, it’s just too soulless.
Available from www.shootingstarcomics.com
$4.95, via paypal.