I Read Comic Books discussion

The first Book of the Month for 2022 is Pearl, Vol. 1 by Brian Michael Bendis! I've read this one before so I'm super excited to see what other people have to say.

What did you think of this pick? Do you think the art went well with the story? Would you continue on with the series?

As always, this thread is FULL SPOILERS for Volume 1! If you've read further, please no spoilers past the first volume.

Be sure to get your comments in before 1/30 and include OK TO AIR if your comments can be part of the show!

The episode will be available on 2/3 wherever you get your podcasts.

Currently on sale on Comixology for $5.99: https://www.comixology.com/Pearl-2018...

Hoopla: https://www.hoopladigital.com/title/1...

If you use Chrome or Firefox, you can use Library Extension while browsing on Goodreads to see if your library has a book available for checkout: https://www.libraryextension.com/

Just finished my re-read of this book - I'll admit that through the middle I wasn't really sure why I rated it 4 stars - it gets a little muddled but by the end I was all in again. Plus I think the art is gorgeous!

Really excited to finally read Volume 2 and see where it goes from there!

I think this may be my favorite of the many Jinxworld books Bendis has released lately. Gaydos absolutely kills it on the art. The book is gorgeous looking with a muted color palette. Bendis edits some of his trademark verbal diarrhea and it really lets the story shine. This is the kind of Bendis book I dig.

My Review

OK to air

Pearl, Volume One is a piece of noir fiction in which our titular heroine becomes unwillingly enmeshed in a war involving two Yakuza clans in present-day San Francisco. The comic is written by Brian Michael Bendis, who has a pretty extensive bibliography that includes Jinx, House of M, Age of Ultron, etc. The artwork is by Michael Gaydos.

The best thing about this book (my opinion, of course) is Gaydos’ art. In many of the panels Gaydos employs a limited palette to excellent effect (e.g., in the opening pages of the first issue, he restricts himself to variations of green and some brown). In other instances (e.g., the nightclub scenes), Gaydos’ work is more psychedelic. One of my favorite instances of this latter style depicts a night-time scene in which Pearl and Rick comtemplate what I assume is the Bay Bridge. If I have a complaint about Gaydos’ work here, it might be that within a scene, his use of colors will occasionally shift in a manner that makes tracking a given character a bit problematic.

Bendix is held in fairly high regard in the comics community and so I’m embarrassed to admit that for me at least he’s the weak link in this project. At the end of six issues, I find that I’m still struggling to make sense of the characters. Why are they doing the things they are doing? Should I like them? Dislike them? Find them amusing...or merely creepy? Take, for instance, Pearl and Rick. Presumably, I am supposed to believe that they’ve fallen in love. Yet, there seems to be no readily identifiable reason for this to have transpired and the pair has zero chemistry with one another. Some of my difficulty may stem from Bendis’ trademark dialog. Bendis cites writers like Aaron Sorkin and David Mamet as influences. I can see that influence at work in Pearl, but wonder whether that kind of dialog might not work better in film than in a comic, where the inability to hear the repartee makes it easier to miss the nuance in that sort of clever, rapid-fire patter.

In interviews about Pearl, Bendix has stressed that he wanted to write a Yakuza story shorn of the usual clichés. Maybe, but in contemplating the final product, I couldn’t help but think that if Pearl has jettisoned one group of clichés, it seems to have acquired a bundle of other ones — the “Romeo and Juliet” couple from opposing clans, the individual who suddenly (and somewhat ludicrously) becomes a remarkably proficient assassin, etc. Even Pearl’s trick in which her “tattoos” suddenly manifest when she gets emotional seems a rather overt rip-off of Alfred Bester’s Foyle in the classic sci-fi book, Tiger! Tiger!

While there are things I definitely liked about Pearl, for me the negatives outweighed the positives. I doubt that I’ll contine to track the heroine’s exploits in the second volume.

✭✭

(Okay to air.)

Canavan wrote: "Pearl, Volume One is a piece of noir fiction in which our titular heroine becomes unwillingly enmeshed in a war involving two Yakuza clans in present-day San Francisco. The comic is..."

I'm taking a break from reading for a bit but I am going to start BMB's book Powers soon

This book was not for me; because I know that other people enjoy it I won’t go too far into the reasons why I didn’t. I gave it three stars because I think the art is four-star and the story is two star. There’s some great line work and an interesting use of color but there are also places where the art is kind of muddy. The story is really what sinks this for me. I’m not a huge fan of two white guys doing a story about the yakuza; there are a lot of tropes if I’m being generous or stereotypes if I’m being more brutal. There are a number of scenes where I really don’t understand why the characters did what they did or reacted the way they reacted. I didn’t find enough in the story to make it something I want to keep reading.

Ok to air

Here’s my review of this series (vol.1):

As a tattooer myself, the trope of mixing tattoos/gangsters/violence is fairly overdone and tiring. Perpetuating the romanticism of a too cool, aloof, bury their deep emotional trauma down into the work, I believe, is a stereotype that needs to be eliminated within all arts mentality. It’s just inaccurate and toxic to peoples views on artists as well as creating a false narrative for younger generations.
On a technical level, the story itself fell flat on its delivery and pacing. The immediate change of environment, with characters or moments giving exposition in a Guy Ritchie movie type fashion felt stiff and unnecessary.
With all respect to Mr.Bendis and the amazing stories they have told in the past, The characters/lifestyle of gangsters, tattooers, sex criminals and deviants are written by somebody who doesn’t understand that type of lifestyle, just glorifies it from a vicarious distance.
The saving grace to this project is Michael Gaydos’ beautiful art. Although I felt the storyboarding was a bit stiff, Mr. Gaydos’ stunning colour theory kept me turning the pages. It had a very rotoscope vibe to the art, reminding me of A Scanner Darkly. The richness and neon vibe to some scenes were absolutely beautiful.
Unfortunately it wasn’t enough to keep me invested in this story. I don’t have any desire to continue uncovering Pearl’s adventure and probably wouldn’t be a book recommends sin the future for anybody wanting to get into comics or BMB’s work.

Gaydos’s photorealism art was in full display and was a strength in the story. The tattoo work and the San Francisco cityscapes were especially beautiful, with a muted blue and pink color palette. But, OMG, all those speech bubbles! While Bendis is known for his snappy dialogue, he is also known for overdoing it, and that was the case throughout the story. Gaydos did his best to incorporate all the dialogue into the panels, in fact, he just leaned into it on one page, with Mr. Miike’s dialogue just spiraling around him.

It will be a hard pass for me in regards to reading further volumes. The self-indulgent dialogue, the problematic issue of neither author nor artist being Asian, plus my lack of connection to Pearl or Rick made this a one-and-done. *Ok to air*

For a full review check out my blog: https://graphicnovelty2.com/2022/01/1...

I don't know, the art is nice(Especially the colors), and I liked the opening, but beyond that it just didn't grab me. I didn't really feel like I had much of a reason to care and I kind of ended up wanting to get it over and done with. It wasn't bad or anything, it was just very meh to me, I was kind of bored and as a result, didn't really understand what was going on at points. As such I find it hard to make any further comments

I was involved in choosing this month's Book of the Month. "Pearl" was my top vote, the most intriguing of the candidates that I hadn't read and was available. And now I feel bad, because I really did not like this.

I was confused from the opening. How many motorcycles were there? Who's shooting whom? And Rick is yakuza? He looks like a Jonas Brother. Wait, she's supposed to be albino?

Michael Gaydos is an impressive artist, but the photorealistic pages do not work for me at all as sequential art. The poses are stiff, and feel like found photos were arranged in a collage then had a script pasted on that the actors were unaware of when photos were taken. Poses are stiff, stares are empty, and panels next to each other during a discussion have sight lines that disconcertingly don't match up. Many of the flashback scenes have styles that flow much better but only serve to accentuate the photorealistic limitations. On top of it all, the characters' mouths are rarely open, yet words are tumbling out of their mouths.

Oh wow, the tumbling word bubbles. I can appreciate attempting to capture the cadence of everyday speech, but this is so chopped it hurts to read. I spent much of the first half of the book examining how much easier to read it would have been just to include multiple brief sentences in single bubbles, treating each as a paragraph. Sure, it would still have been hackneyed dialogue in (many) spots, but it didn't have to be this bad. Thankfully the bubbles start to become more confident once Pearl and Rick run and hide out about halfway through, but the damage was done.

The book also changes tone and pace about midway through, and I can't tell whether it's because they felt they were hitting their stride but to me it just felt disjointed as if the creative team was getting switched out.

The Endo twins introduce a Pulp Fiction/Guy Ritchie tone that could be interesting but it just doesn't feel like they belong in what has come before. Text captions that had been brief scene-setters are now narration with an attitude that came out of nowhere. It's disorienting.

Why is the story of Pearl's invisible tattoos almost entirely text? It would have made a very powerful full issue if drawn. It's a very frustrating way to have a core aspect of this book presented, especially because the font, typesetting, and contrast make it painfully hard to read. I do get a strong sense of an unreliable narrator from it, but maybe it's just because I don't buy Pearl cutting an intricate design all across her back. I wouldn't be surprised if this is revealed later in the series as an incorrect deduction on Kimmy's part.

Someone can feel free to tell me if my suspicions are confirmed (somewhere else, since spoiler disclaimer only applies here for vol 1), but I don't feel compelled to continue reading the story.

Okay to air.

I liked the art, which reminded me of rotoscoping, and the colors. And I enjoyed how sometimes there was text outside of bubbles, like title text, but more of it. That might be hard for me to read in the paper version, but I read it digitally and so that was no problem.

The story simply isn't a sort of story I like. I can't relate to any of the characters. I just don't care for stories about warring gangs and have no interest in tattoos.

I've spent this past month trying to figure out what the heck I think about this book. Overall, I would give it a "meh."

The art grew on me. Early on, the photorealism seemed almost like an amateur move, going with art that is TOO realistic and detailed which could end in inconsistency in character design or even a trip to uncanny valley. The muted color palette that the series started with was also kind of boring, so I just wasn't drawn in at first. As the story went on, though, the art got more interesting and exciting and I eventually dug it. It's very fun how the art develops with the story. Props to Gaydos for taking the risk and pulling it off.

I ended up wanting to flip through the pages again after reading how her body tattoos only show up when she shows emotion. It's a super cool detail! But for some reason, I didn't connect the dots from the one conversation where she explains it (probably because of the conversation getting interrupted by time jumps) and spent a lot of the first reading confused as to where the random tattoos were coming from. I wish I could have appreciated this detail the first time around and not just after reading the interview with Bendis at the end. But, again, this is a super cool detail and I see it showing up in interesting ways as time goes on.

The story is... okay. Had some interesting points and not so interesting points. Cool twist? Kinda? I might read volume 2 at some point just to see where it goes and know how I really feel about it. It feels like this story needs some time to grow into itself, so I'm hopeful that it will!

OK TO AIR

The episode for this BotM is live: Episode 315 | The Comics Pit (Goodreads Book of the Month: Pearl Vol. 1).

Check out the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts to hear our thoughts on what we read! Or listen now at https://www.ircbpodcast.com/episodes/...