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Again for the more ADD of you out there click here for the Bottom Line on this title.
If the name Whedon is on something I have a general compulsion to buy that shit up the moment I see it.
SugarShock is just one of those occurrences
SugarShock is a little one-shot written by Joss “I AM FIREFLY” Whedon with art done by Fabio Moon. The story centers around an indie rock band that inevitably gets mixed up in some intergalactic business having to fight some bad ass aliens in an arena for the glory of Earth (like thunderdome…if Monty Python were running it). Initially unbeknown to me SugarShock had premiered partly via Dark Horse’s online myspace page and the thing even won a motherfucking Eisner Award in ‘08 for best digital comic…shows how much I have been outta touch with the comics scene.
The overall writing for the thing is….how shall I put this, it’s half Vaughan Runaway-esque half BAT SHIT FUCKING INSANE. Whedon seems to basically just write stream of consciousness for the whole run of the issue and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The general story keeps you reading to see what zany ass shit is gonna happen next, much in the way Ellis’ Nextwave, Gerard Way’s Umbrella Academy or Remender’s Fear Agent would have you doing. The characterization within this one-shot at first glance seems shoddy and all over the place but it actual does something kinda cool in that it sacrifices possible deep individual character development so as to further the development of the band and it’s overall personality. I guess a simpler way of saying it is, with the time available to write this, instead of getting mired in all the personal aspects of everyone, Whedon instead tried to focus on developing the band as it’s own character of sorts. (see: Buffy, Firefly, etc, etc etc), this furthering the story and it’s identity in a weird sorta way. Baring all of this in mind though, there is some care taken with the band leader Dandelion and her overall character. Dandelion comes off as batshit insane (see Haruko Haruhara from FLCL) but by the end you start to get that maybe she is actually more sane then the rest of her band *coughs* River *coughs*…Whedon going so far as to explain the running gag of Viking Hatred…to be possibly a part of Dandelion’s past and sorta endearing the reader more to her. I’d go on further and talk about the irony of the robot guitarist, Wade, but I don’t wanna ruin the whole damn book for ya. (Side note: Wade looks incredibly similar to the robot from Invincible)
The artwork for this one-shot is good. The layout of the panels really supports Fabio Moon’s style which falls in a nice groove between some of Tony Moore’s stuff in Fear Agent and some of Gabriel Ba’s stuff from Umbrella Academy.
Given …Moon is Ba’s twin brother though, so I guess the similarity between his work and his brother’s shouldn’t be a big surprise. If the name sounds familiar to ya, Moon also did some of the groovy artwork in Casanova after his brother left around issue 8 and has worked alongside his bro in some other stuff like BPRD: 1947.
Ok, SO bottom line.: This one-shot is good. It’s Whedon writing an acid trippin version of Josie and the Pussycats with a talking robot + Fabio Moon’s artwork, what more can one want. GO READ IT!
