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rebus's review
1.5
Chaykin was a great innovator and American Flagg! is one of the greatest, most prescient, and most subversive comics of all time, but his work after that groundbreaking series was all terrible and he's become one of the greatest hacks in comic history.
So, here we have the much rumored XXX series that predated Flagg! by a few years, and it's a mixed bag. The dazzling display of design elements and the innovative lettering by Bruzenak are on full display here, but much like Flagg!, the story telling, lay out, and panel design make it nearly impossible to follow at times, requiring much back tracking.
The story is rather dull and pedestrian. It's just another bizarre tale of sex cults that is so implausible that it's risible. One of the main reasons it's so incoherently written is that Chaykin had a huge habit of making many of the characters within a given tale look alike--in fact, Cass was recycled to become Reuben Flagg and Dagmar became another character in the later series, while a small orange tabby roams around in both series and nearly every other character looks exactly like a character in Flagg!--which is merely a cheap trick to confuse the reader because the author really doesn't know how to write or plot and draw out dramatic tension in real ways. One spends the entire series unable to tell Dagmar from Beverly--unless they are nude--and we are led down a blind alley believing that the blackmailer must be Rosemary, when in fact it is simply another character drawn to look exactly like Rosemary, but with a slight cosmetic difference.
It was so maddening to read, unlike the delight we all took in American Flagg!, at puzzling out all of these elements of design that were new and groundbreaking at the time, but this is just an incoherent mess. The sex is violent and the violence is uber violent, though it isn't nearly as graphic as we were led to believe.
It's a historical artifact of interest to Flagg! fans, but only as a curiosity that shows his later growth and development (which, sadly started and stopped with his lone masterpiece and only good piece of work).
Kind of pathetic and not worth the head banging to figure it out.
So, here we have the much rumored XXX series that predated Flagg! by a few years, and it's a mixed bag. The dazzling display of design elements and the innovative lettering by Bruzenak are on full display here, but much like Flagg!, the story telling, lay out, and panel design make it nearly impossible to follow at times, requiring much back tracking.
The story is rather dull and pedestrian. It's just another bizarre tale of sex cults that is so implausible that it's risible. One of the main reasons it's so incoherently written is that Chaykin had a huge habit of making many of the characters within a given tale look alike--in fact, Cass was recycled to become Reuben Flagg and Dagmar became another character in the later series, while a small orange tabby roams around in both series and nearly every other character looks exactly like a character in Flagg!--which is merely a cheap trick to confuse the reader because the author really doesn't know how to write or plot and draw out dramatic tension in real ways. One spends the entire series unable to tell Dagmar from Beverly--unless they are nude--and we are led down a blind alley believing that the blackmailer must be Rosemary, when in fact it is simply another character drawn to look exactly like Rosemary, but with a slight cosmetic difference.
It was so maddening to read, unlike the delight we all took in American Flagg!, at puzzling out all of these elements of design that were new and groundbreaking at the time, but this is just an incoherent mess. The sex is violent and the violence is uber violent, though it isn't nearly as graphic as we were led to believe.
It's a historical artifact of interest to Flagg! fans, but only as a curiosity that shows his later growth and development (which, sadly started and stopped with his lone masterpiece and only good piece of work).
Kind of pathetic and not worth the head banging to figure it out.
neven's review
3.0
A lost "classic" that's quite unique in its dedication to depravity. It takes overtly sexual fiction to a whole new dimension, disturbing for the depth and breadth of its imagination more than the graphic depictions (which are, for the most part, fairly tame.) And yet, it's all a not-too-bad noir story. I kind of respect that. My chief complaint is that Chaykin's command of the comic as a medium isn't very confident: his line work, composition, and panelling are often quite confusing and hard to follow. Add the numerous one-sided conversations in this story, and you'll be doing a lot of backtracking to sort out what the heck just happened.
And just in case it's not yet clear, this is XXX material. Do not go into it lightly.
And just in case it's not yet clear, this is XXX material. Do not go into it lightly.
memorian's review
3.0
What on earth did I just read!? Going in I thought I had an idea what this was about, but then I didn't. Then midway through I really didn't know and then at the end everything I thought I knew was thrown out the window and there was a complete genre flip.
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