Written by: Joe Harris
Art by: Meghan Hutchinson and Kelly Fitzpatrick
Publisher: Image Comics
In the midst of finals week, the last thing I want to do is read yet another textbook. Seriously–I’ve spent the last few days poring over Economics, Math, and French text books. It’s been truly awful. Feel bad for me. So when I take a break from studying, writing papers, and putting presentations together to read a comic, the last thing I want is for the first half of that comic to read like a textbook. Unfortunately, this is definitely true of Rockstars #1.
Perhaps my sensitivities are heightened right now, and I’m compromised as a reviewer. But, if I may, allow me to posit an alternative: Comic books should not be reminiscent of fucking text books. Want to convey a bunch of information? You’ve got an artist for that. Don’t transcribe a prose novel over a bunch of art. Unless it’s a really good novel I guess, but even then, save it for another medium.
The entire first half of Rockstars legitimately left me wondering why Meghan Hutchinson and Kelly Fitzpatrick even bothered. I mean, their work looks really good. It’s got this surrealist, washed out style that makes for a pretty cool aesthetic, and the sense of visual storytelling is strong. It’s really too bad that it’s obscured by Joe Harris vomiting exposition all over the place. It makes reading the book feel like a chore.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m in for some wordy comics. But you have to make those words count, feel like they matter. Because here, they don’t. Most of them could be removed entirely, and the book would be much better for it. The core conceit is actually pretty cool–an unlikely duo exploring rock and roll mysteries? Sign me up. It sounds like a ton of fun. But I was bored three pages in, and then the book did nothing to alleviate that.
The characters are not that interesting. My first time through, I figured I may just have had some residual boredom, but no. The characters aren’t even dull in the sense that they’re archetypal–I’m just not sure what their character traits are. Emo rocker boy is mysterious and female Matrix cosplayer knows some stuff but… I couldn’t really tell you who they are as people.
That’s a major failing for a first issue. At the very least, there should be something that’s fleshed out just enough to be invested in. Perhaps the creative team here was riding on the mystery doing that, but even that seems fairly generic. Over/under on how many issues go by before we learn that it was the illuminati the whole time? I’m not feeling particularly generous, but maybe Rockstars will have a little bit more self restraint than Romulus did. At least no one pulls their own tooth out in this issue to prove how tough they are.
So, yeah that’s Rockstars #1. It’s slightly better than Romulus, I guess. There’s my conclusion about this book.
