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November 30, 2006
X-Men 193: Chris Bachalo Confuses This Cowboy
Have you ever given a comic-book to anyone over the age of 30, who ain't never seen one before? Maybe someone who ain't that visual, ain't into movies, thinks the Dukes of Hazzard is the be-all and end-all of entertainment? Most likely, any comic will confuse the heck out of them. They probably can't figure out what's goin' on, how to follow the panels in the right order. Worse, the comic doesn't come alive to them, like it does for us, because when we read it, the characters are actually moving in our tiny little minds. To "normal" people (whatever the heck that means), a comic is just a series of disjointed images.
Durin' the past few years, that's how any comic drawn by Chris Bachalo makes me feel.
It wasn't always this way. I loved Bachalo's work in Shade, the Changing Man, Death, Ghost Rider 2099, and Generation X. But lately with the X-Men, in both the Chris Claremont and Mike Carey stories, a lot of times I'm just plain confused during any of the action scenes. Take that panel on top as an example. The villainess called Serafina (who can master any machine) is controlling Karima (rogue Omega Sentinel chick) and firing her weapons against Mystique. Meanwhile, Sabretooth is in the background trying to ambush Serafina. After readin' this three times, I finally figured it out. My head hurt tryin' to understand this panel. What's Serafina doin' by touchin' the Omega chick? I'd be worried about that megaton hulk directly behind me. It's not clear that Mystique is in any real danger because she's mostly off panel. (To tell you the truth, I just plain forgot who the Sentinel chick was until I read the previous issues, so maybe as a trade this story works better.)
Now here's another example. That mega-ship the Children of the Vault are flyin' is about to crash into Xavier's Mansion. Cannonball (one of my favorite New Mutants, all grown-up now) decides to fly off the ship, zoom underneath and try to push it back. But it's not clear in the second panel which way Cannonball is flyin'. Is it right to left or left to right? And who are those dudes on right? Are they statues? No, they are the Sentinels guardin' the mansion who are flyin' upwards to also stop the ship! Sheesh. The next page after this one isn't clear either, because Cannonball presses against the big black hull and halts the ship's descent. At first I thought he broke through the ship and went clear into outer space.
Is it just me or is Chris Bachalo's action storytellin' a bit baffling? There's no denyin' that Bachalo is a master craftsman when it comes to drawing figures, splash pages, and all kinds of other scenes. Maybe the stories by Claremont and Carey have just been too crammed full of details that he needs to shove into every panel. Or maybe I'm just too old to be readin' this here comic. I'm in the mood to see Bachalo draw something other than superheroes. Nuff said.
Comments
Nice fishing for comments on the Newsarama Blog. And you are right. Even though I really like Bachalos artwork, he's not the greatest storyteller and can be confusing as hell.
Posted by: Bendrix | December 1, 2006 2:41 PM
