Goldfish

Rating:
Summary: Too cool for school genre writing exercise
Review: Goldfish is a fast-paced noir thriller with a theme, plot and characters worthy of any crime writer, and a revelation of what a graphic novel can do. You waste no time reading descriptions of people, surroundings, body language, car crashes and gun battles: your visual cortex does the work with immediate impact. Bendis's art is simple, dark, very expressive. Here and there facial expressions are awkwardly drawn, but the overall layout is effective and the acting is really good. I love the way he only paints surroundings every couple of pages, but they're so carefully selected that they stick with you for a long time. His lighting, close-ups and sustained high tempo do remind you of a movie (think Reservoir Dogs or Memento), except that the dialogue is unimpaired by PG ratings. It's sassy, to the point, true to its characters like a tape recording.

Now you might say that it's almost overdone. The author devised a rigid formal structure that is very densely packed with points and counterpoints, comic relief, dramatic confessions, flash-backs, flash-forwards, action, anticipation, etc. His technique is a little bit too obvious, and the female characters end up a tad shrill. But that's just a tiny gripe for purists, and I'm glad to report, Bendis is completely over that now (look at Jinx, it's a true classic). Besides, many layered themes are woven into this story just as carefully as its plot twists and turns, and its final offbeat perspective makes up for whatever feels formulaic before that. So, don't pass up on Goldfish. It's a great read, it has real feeling and makes more than one good point. It definitely deserves a spot in your collection.

Rating:
Summary: Gritty Comic-Noir....
Review: Goldfish is, at it's simplest level, a revenge story. A grifter returns to take back something that belongs to him; something that his former partner is unwilling to relinquish, and will kill to keep. The difference between this and every other revenge story is the prize in question is not stolen loot, but a child- the son of David "Goldfish" Gold and his former lover/partner Lauren.

Lauren is now a bigshot crime-boss, while Goldfish is still pulling small-time cons. To give away anything else would be to do potential readers a great injustice.

Writer/Artist Brian Michael Bendis keeps the twists and turns coming, and the book is HUGE- a great value.

The drawbacks are the same ones I've had with most of Bendis' collections, including Jinx, Fire, & Torso: Poor production values. The climax of Goldfish has a few pages printed out of order, and the book is FILLED with misspelled words. (That kind of stuff drives me nuts!) Bendis' art is too murky also, and at times it was very difficult to tell who was doing what to whom.
But readers who are looking for a well-told, twisty crime drama will probably enjoy Goldfish.

Rating:
Summary: Good crime comic
Review: I would have to say that Bendis' crime work is probably the best of that type in the comic field.

He is a very good writer who consistently delivers good and believable dialogue for his characters.

I do have a complaint though. I am not the biggest fan of the art. It seems murky and somewhat disjointed. Sometimes during some of the longer dialogue scenes I had trouble distinguishing which of the characters was actually speaking.

That being said, I still would advise that you buy this one. It is a large book with good characters and a surprising twist. Give it a try.

Rating:
Summary: This Graphic Novel Sucked
Review: Maybe because it was so hyped and praised, I bought if off amazon.com and had it delivered to my house. It sucked. There wasn't anything original about it at all. Bad boy makes good. The prodigal son returns. Child in peril. Bad woman. Stupid woman. Evil men, etc. "Sin City" makes "Goldfish" look like a "Garfield" episode. There wasn't much violence at all and there was of course a stupid Mexican stand off in the end. Also, the main character is about as appealing as a booger on a public hand rail: weasely, ugly, wimpy, stupid, whiny, a horrible parent in need of a good barber. I have not read Torso or Jinx and, in truth, they do sound much more entertaining in aspect, BUT "Goldfish" was so unenjoyable I may not buy either of them. If you want good realism, while escaping at the same time, get something from Frank Miller or Garth Ennis. I just hated this thing from beginning to end.