Angel #19

The now subtitle-less Angel is a more uneven title than the uber-arc that was Angel: After the Fall. New writer Kelley Armstrong picks up the characters and the City of Angel more or less where Brian Lynch left off - been to Hell, got the t-shirt, can we go back to helping the hopeless now, plz? - but it misses Lynch's fast-paced snark. I'm still interested in seeing how the characters and relationships continue to develop, particularly the happier dynamic finally earned between Angel and Connor, and it's great seeing Kate Lockley back in a new role, but the series doesn't have the same sharp, perfectly Jossian edge it once did.

I have much love and respect for comic book artists, but as a writer I look first at a book's script; that's what I feel most qualified to analyze. Even so, I'm not sure what to make of this art by Dave Ross. His basic style is straightforward and more or less realistic. His likenesses of the TV characters aren't particularly accurate or evocative, but I'm less concerned that Angel doesn't look like David Boreanaz than I am by how often he and other characters appear constipated. There are some very odd expressions on faces in this book, particularly during action scenes, and strange postures and camera angles.

A bigger problem has to do with visual pacing and panel layout. I'm a big fan of Scott McCloud's work, particularly Understanding Comics, and the theories he describes about how the essence of comic book storytelling lies in the space between the panels, the way in which the reader is left to fill in for themselves just how the character got from panel A to panel B. But there are places in Angel #19 where I really felt a panel or a key image was missing.

Case in point: Angel is surprised by a mysterious woman in his bedroom. They fight, then the woman ends up lounging across his headboard while they make with the yak-yak A threat is made. Angel, in a close-up, says, "You can't even catch--" and in the next panel, we see the woman suddenly standing right in front of him. The implication here is that the woman made a cheetah-fast leap from the headboard to the floor before Angel could see her coming. But the way the action was presented here, with a panel of close-up on Angel's face between the woman lounging on the headboard and the woman right there in front of him, it took me a second to work the action out. Since we couldn't see what the woman was doing during the close-up on Angel, how did we know she hadn't begun to move while he was speaking? The layout here muddled the action, and took me out of the story for several moments while I reconstructed what was meant to have happened.

A weak script will distract me from a good comic faster than anything, but the combination of a weak script and confusing art make it difficult for me to enjoy myself. Here's hoping the work evens out some over the next few issues.

- JC