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otterno11's review
3.0
Love Buzz, a “true love story,” is a well executed but rather run-of-the-mill geek culture based relationship comic that focuses on Norm, a nerdy budding comic book artist from Louisville and his complicated romance with the flighty musician Maggie. While fictionalized, the autobiographical elements are obvious. Named after the Nirvana song, Love Buzz will provide any comic or music geek plenty of easter eggs to hunt out, which both compliments the interests of Norm and detracts from telling his story. As a collaboration between writer Len Wallace and artists Michelle Silva and Dave Tuney, Silva’s clean, expressive artwork is the best part of the comic, though is often relegated to merely provide background and talking heads for Wallace’s dialog. In addition, Norm’s daydreams and sketches are illustrated by Tuney, whose style is appropriately cartoony and riffs on common comic genres, from superheroes to Herge (including laying on Tintin’s infamous racism a bit too thickly). These make for some fun scenes that punctuate what is going on in Ray’s reality, if in a slightly heavy handed way.
Wallace’s writing does capture the immaturity of the characters, but aside from the two leads, people are little defined aside from stereotype (i.e., willfully offensive dude, geeky tomgirl, etc.); I could not really like these characters beyond their roles as filler, and though we follow both Norm and Maggie from high school to early college, little personal growth is exhibited. Both make bad decisions and hurt each other’s feelings and end in an ambiguous spot; the melancholy reminds me a little of Jeffrey Brown’s relationship comics, though perhaps it’s “fictional” aspect detracts from the emotional resonance that infuse Brown’s autobiographical comics and make them far more thoughtful, bittersweet reads. Also, for those not versed in “geek culture,” the events may be somewhat obtuse, but it is a good depiction. It can be very difficult to capture the humor and pathos of everyday life and here it turns out a little shallow.
Wallace’s writing does capture the immaturity of the characters, but aside from the two leads, people are little defined aside from stereotype (i.e., willfully offensive dude, geeky tomgirl, etc.); I could not really like these characters beyond their roles as filler, and though we follow both Norm and Maggie from high school to early college, little personal growth is exhibited. Both make bad decisions and hurt each other’s feelings and end in an ambiguous spot; the melancholy reminds me a little of Jeffrey Brown’s relationship comics, though perhaps it’s “fictional” aspect detracts from the emotional resonance that infuse Brown’s autobiographical comics and make them far more thoughtful, bittersweet reads. Also, for those not versed in “geek culture,” the events may be somewhat obtuse, but it is a good depiction. It can be very difficult to capture the humor and pathos of everyday life and here it turns out a little shallow.
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