{"id":4422,"date":"2010-07-25T02:16:35","date_gmt":"2010-07-25T06:16:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/?p=4422"},"modified":"2010-07-25T02:16:35","modified_gmt":"2010-07-25T06:16:35","slug":"revolver-by-matt-kindt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/?p=4422","title":{"rendered":"Revolver by Matt Kindt"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"One of the few comics I\u2019ve read recently that does not feel like it\u2019s nostalgia driven or overly genre based. The press release for the book says it\u2019s science fiction, but it feels like some weird hybrid of slice-o-life daily office life banality mixed with an action movie. The hook is that through time travel, whenever the clock hits 11:11 pm the protagonist switches from office life to action-hero life and thusly gets to experience both as the story moves forward, instead of the usual zero-to-hero plot development. Okay, maybe it is genre-based sci-fi. Still, it doesn\u2019t FEEL like some re-hash of a genre comic book or a self-referencing comics nod. There\u2019s even a comic book that is read by the zero\/hero within this graphic novel that is used as a narrative device but that doesn\u2019t FEEL nostalgic to me either. Hurm.<\/p>\n

But all that is so inside baseball. I guess it\u2019s from working at Copacetic<\/a>. Like I can\u2019t explain a lot of comics to customers in \u201ccomics terms\u201d cuz most of our customers are fairly new to comics. So me explaining that it is Kindt\u2019s brushwork that keeps this rollicking tale from coming across as a re-hash, or that his brushwork is, to me, a flowering of the alt 90\u2019s Mazzucchelli\/Pope bang-it-out approach and is a beautiful counter-point to all the slick photo-reffing schlubs<\/a> who can\u2019t draw an action scene to save their lives\u2014that just barely makes sense to them, or maybe even to you, True Believer. But I gotta try, and will, for you, Believer, before I move on to how I pitch it to the lay people. See, it\u2019s one of the few comics I\u2019ve read recently that is free of the current strain of nostalgia that\u2019s prevalent in comics in 2010 and is instead just a straight-ahead ROMP with 2010 people and a 2010 feeling. Wally Gropius<\/em>, Afrodisiac<\/em>, Bodyworld<\/em>, Bulletproof Coffin<\/em>, Orc Satin<\/em>, King City<\/em>, Wilson<\/em> all feel like \u201cthrowbacks\u201d as much as they might feel like a fresh fusion of styles \u2013 they all seem to heavily reference other comics and some are presented as old\/new. You don\u2019t have to know the references as a reader to enjoy the styles, but it helps. It\u2019s amongst this current crop of 2010 releases that Kindt\u2019s \u201cbang it out\u201d approach stands in bold relief and is, to me, a refreshing \u201calternative.\u201d And considering that Kindt\u2019s own back catalog contains works of \u201cnostalgia\u201d and \u201cthrowback\u201d styles, it\u2019s really interesting to me as a reader to see Kindt add a new pitch to his repertoire and how his simple approach adapts to other genres.<\/p>\n

But like I said, that\u2019s all inside baseball. The fact of the matter is that Revolver<\/em> is the kind of graphic novel I can suggest to non-comics readers and they will totally dig it. And I think that part of the book\u2019s attraction is that it resembles a type of movie one might see. Boring everyday life and then a life changing moment that lights the fuse on the ACTION. Comics, of course, trucks in that territory too but a lot of the Spring\/Summer 2010 release have been really quirky \u2013 Afrodisiac, Bodyworld, Wilson, Werewolves of Montpellier, Wally Gropius<\/em> \u2013 and are, frankly, a little hard to enter for new readers of comics. Revolver<\/em> is the perfect comic to suggest to someone who has read some comics and is looking for a new \u201cgraphic novel.\u201d That\u2019s not to take away from the book\u2019s craft or intent or potential worth. It\u2019s a well made book but it\u2019s also an easy book to \u201cget\u201d and one that I think is easy to enjoy without straining to make sense of specific comics references. Revolver<\/em>\u2019s story is a straight ahead action\/adventure comic even if it is slightly disjointed from the time travel bit. It\u2019s a genre riff, sure, but one that feels in current usage and contemporary, something that has a parallel in the tv reality survivor show interzone or gaming with it’s narrative survival escape plan prize hunts.<\/p>\n

Kindt\u2019s drawings really MOVE the story. He\u2019s been doing this stripped down approach for years and I find it really flexible \u2013 able to speed up and slow down the pace. The \u201creporter-like\u201d style is perfectly suited for the firecracker stops and starts. I think Kindt is like a beat poet who just breathes out long lines and lets the momentum of the delivery carry the meaning, the FEELING. His quick style is also equipped to handle the more fantastic elements of the story: explosions, figures moving through space in action poses \u2013 sounds like a superhero comic but because of Kindt\u2019s straight ahead documentary drawings and sequencing it all FEELS more fantastic because it\u2019s seen through the filter of an undecorated style. It being unlike a mainstream comic book makes it more real to me than if it were rendered in hyper-realistic Photoshopped detail.<\/p>\n

THE STORY: Sam is regular boring guy who works at a magazine in an office. He goes to work this one day and all hell breaks loose, explosions, people falling from office building windows. Chaos. He looks for his girl, Maria, in a panic and instead finds his boss, Jan, refusing to leave the building in shock. He hates her normally but of course now has to help. They get away but it\u2019s brutal and he and Jan find somewhere to hide. Then Sam wakes up. Was it a dream? He goes to work again like everyday and it\u2019s like it never happened. But now being in the real world is equally terrifying because it FEELS so meaningless. Which is the nightmare? When he goes to sleep next to Maria the girl he couldn\u2019t find in the nightmare \u2013 and she\u2019s talking about furniture, Sam realizes how pointless work and his everyday existence is compared to surviving in the nightmare. Falling asleep next to Maria he\u2019s afraid and doesn\u2019t know why. When he wakes again he\u2019s back in the hideout with Jan his boss and then the everyday world truly is the fantasy.<\/p>\n

The hook with him switching between worlds at 11:11 pm no matter if he is awake or asleep works for me but at times it\u2019s a little confusing. It\u2019s a useful device for bringing certain IDEAS that I think would be hard to pull off in a more conventional narrative. Specifically, the ghostly feeling of being in a place with one person and then revisiting that same place at a different time with a different person and noting the changes, the shifts. Don\u2019t we all do that? Especially in relationships there seem to be these demarcation lines where we each pause to take note of how different we feel today than how we felt yesterday. So, that sort of gray, ghostly mist \u2013 the spaces in between feelings \u2013 where we feel helpless to time and fate is a vast well of material for a story. And it usually ends up on the cutting room floor because it\u2019s often a sideroad in the story. The confusing transitions between worlds are minimal and was really me just waiting for Kindt to show us a transition when Sam is awake \u2013 like I was thinking, \u201cit\u2019s the end of the world and Sam goes to bed every night at 11?\u201d Those are the kind of things that can get wonky with those sci-fi hooks but this one works for me.<\/p>\n

The story, the story. Yah, reviews that explain too much of the story seem silly to me. And when I\u2019m trying to get a customer to bite on a book I don\u2019t like giving away too much. Better to let them figure it out for themselves. But I will say this: The first third is amazing. Amazing. And the second third is great until you realize as a reader that there is no way this story can keep up this pace at the halfway point and resolve everything by the end. It\u2019s disappointing only that I want more as a reader, I don\u2019t want it to end. So, ultimately I don\u2019t mind when an intriguing story often wraps up the final third of the tale a little too quickly \u2013 and this is one of those times \u2013 but the middle to end does slightly feel like the classic time travel narrative back door easy out.<\/p>\n

I still say it feels genre-less because it\u2019s attached to the everyday and to the everyday\u2019s appearance and how it\u2019s all represented as lines on paper. Kindt\u2019s style processes all this stuff \u201ccleanly\u201d and without reference essentially. Meaning everything depicted in the comic goes through Kindt\u2019s own filter \u2013 not a stack of reference books of drawing styles or photographs of ruined cities \u2013 his own filter of what is possible to draw immediately and accurately. Some find his style \u201crough\u201d but I see a polished style, one that lets the reader see through the glitz and glare of sci-fi action tropes and dials it all down a notch for a more emotional reading. I feel for the characters because they don\u2019t look like posed models. They\u2019re a cartooned shorthand that allows me to \u201cread\u201d along faster and connect with the pace more directly. An action comic actually drawn by an action cartoonist. I wasn\u2019t expecting the odd emotional insights and pairings that the story set-up and knocked down. And I think this was the style colliding with the contemporary content. Like a glitzy action movie drawn in a \u201crough\u201d style that is not very comic-booky lookin\u2019 and that\u2019s what makes it feel genre-less and somehow more real and emotional to me. Am I just repeating myself? Can you tell I like this comic? Recommended.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the few comics I\u2019ve read recently that does not feel like it\u2019s nostalgia driven or overly genre based. The press release for the book says it\u2019s science fiction, but it feels like some weird hybrid of slice-o-life daily office life banality mixed with an action movie. The hook is that through time travel, whenever the clock hits 11:11 pm the protagonist switches from office life to action-hero life […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[327,592,871,1014],"class_list":["post-4422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-mazzucchelli","tag-inside-baseball","tag-matt-kindt","tag-pope"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4422\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}