Holy Terror

I picked up Holy Terror a couple of weeks ago because it was ten bucks. That's right, ten bucks for a big widescreen format hardcover comic. Why? Because the book isn't selling and mostly that's becuase it's shit. Really, stinky, shit.

But it's not. My appreciation of a comic is half the art and half the writing, I could care less about story, good writing can overcome a mediocre or bad story for my tastes.

The art in Holy Terror is a culmination of everything great Miller ever did on the Sin City series and then later on with Dark Knight Strikes Again (which I thought was a great post modern kind of re-construction of the super hero).

People say the story is racist, sexist and a blatant rip off. It's a blatant rip-off, that much is true. The racism sexism thing is crap though. It's just that he copy pasted the terrorist struggles America is having over top of comic book cliche's. It's the same fucking story he's written a thousand times before but with terrorists as bad guys and batman and catwoman (whatever they're called in the comic, the fixer and something else) pasted over top. Nothing special and in fact some of the writing is so hackneyed and cliche as to be laughable.

But the art, ah the art. It's the most beautiful comic I've seen in ages. Just stunning to look at. There is a small section in it that depicts the fall of the twin towers that is one of the best things I have ever seen in a comic.

There's rubble all over the place, nails flying through the sky. Then there is a double page spread of people. The page divided up into little boxes with one face in each panel. Just random people, the next page you see the people are fading, more so with each frame. Then you turn the page and they've multiplied, there's 48 panels instead of 36, then 160 panels.

And all of them are blank, NO people anymore, no faded people, just blank.

It reminds me of 80's miller when he used to say things like; "The most important part of a comic is the line between two panels because that is where the reader gets invovled, that's where the reader does the work to decide how the image got from where it was to where it is now. The imagination is active." ... or words to that effect. Here he is working with the medium and doing something you could not do in any other meidum. It's a storke of genius in a book that is filled with genius.

Yes, the writing is weak and cliched, maybe on purpose, it sure seems that way. but the art more then makes up for it and if I was making a best of list for comics this year Holy Terror would earn it's place simply by having the best art of the year and indeed. The best art in many, many years.

Ten bucks was a great deal. I would have paid 30$ now that I know. But I'd rather pay 10.

I can't get this image to work but you can see the blank panels at this link. I'm sure you can imagine them though.

gocomics.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c5f3053ef0162ff7cd532970d-pi

Haven’t bought a rag in a few years, but this sounds like something I’d wade into nerd nirvana to get a copy of. Thanks for sharing.