REVIEW: Wolf, #1

[CBR News]

Ales Kot and Matt Taylor introduce readers to a new side of Los Angeles in the offbeat and entertaining "Wolf" #1.


Full review here.

[quinnzel]

The link doesn't work

[Deniz Camp]

The link doesn't work

Because there is an embargo on reviews. Newsarama accidentally released theirs early, so a few others did as well. Doesn't come out for like a month, so it makes sense.

[Ragdoll]

I don't know what to expect from this one. Kot was on Twitter saying that this book is a dedication to women's menstrual cycles. He also said that if you are the kind of dude who refuses to go down on a woman when she is on the rag, then issue #2 will refuse to open for you. All aboard the Kot hype train. I'm glad people like him are keeping drug fueled comics in the public eye. Even if lot's of people were mad when Zero went from spy thriller to mushroom trip.

[Joker]

I like his comics a lot more than his twitter account, I'll tell you that.

[wwise03]

I don't know what to expect from this one. Kot was on Twitter saying that this book is a dedication to women's menstrual cycles. He also said that if you are the kind of dude who refuses to go down on a woman when she is on the rag, then issue #2 will refuse to open for you. All aboard the Kot hype train. I'm glad people like him are keeping drug fueled comics in the public eye. Even if lot's of people were mad when Zero went from spy thriller to mushroom trip.

This guy strikes me as someone who thinks he's more important than he is, when he reality he's not worth listening to.

[Dorktron]

I like his comics a lot more than his twitter account, I'll tell you that.

This, so much, but that attitude is not unique towards Kot. I can't stand a lot of good comic book writer's opinions in real life.

[Joker]

Sure, but I find Ales' a little more annoying than a lot of comics people. Some are very entertaining, some are not.

I like his comics, but I had to unfollow him on twitter to maintain that interest.

[Samurai Jack]

Does the first issue have 64 pages? I thought it was 58 ad-free pages.
Wolf #1 sounds interesting to me, but I haven't seen any preview pages of the art yet. I'm most likely going to wait to see if it ever gets an Image Firsts release in a year or so, or just wait to buy the first trade paperback if I like it enough. I like the concept of a crime noir mixed in with fantasy and horror elements though, so I'll be looking into this when it comes out this week.

[Joker]

Couple of pages here: http://www.newsarama.com/24959-ales-...with-wolf.html

[Deniz Camp]

I don't know what to expect from this one. Kot was on Twitter saying that this book is a dedication to women's menstrual cycles. He also said that if you are the kind of dude who refuses to go down on a woman when she is on the rag, then issue #2 will refuse to open for you. All aboard the Kot hype train. I'm glad people like him are keeping drug fueled comics in the public eye. Even if lot's of people were mad when Zero went from spy thriller to mushroom trip.

Werewolf-as-menstrual-metaphor is fairly old hat, and even in comics we saw just that in the Moore/Bissette/Totleben Swamp Thing run.

[son of booyah]

Werewolf-as-menstrual-metaphor is fairly old hat, and even in comics we saw just that in the Moore/Bissette/Totleben Swamp Thing run.

Was thinking this. Maybe it's different.

[El Sombrero]

I liked what Kot was trying to do here but I don't think the book really succeeded in any way. Comic wasn't bad but I definitely don't think I'll be back.

One of my primary complaints is something that never occurred to me about Kot, but after reading this in someone's review of the issue it became really apparent. Kot writes a lot of dialogue that is ultimately meaningless and kind of just kills time. It doesn't really do much to set atmosphere or tone, he kinda just repeats himself or goes on tangents or throws out references. He really needs to tighten up his dialogue and go with the "less is more" approach. Some topics or ideas (the focus on "myth," the old white guy being racist) were repeated excessively and became tiresome. For an issue that was nearly triple the length of a standard comic, I don't think this accomplished enough to justify the page count.

The issue kind of had a weird balance in tone. I couldn't tell if it was meant to be silly or serious or weird or whatever. The tentacle guy was really silly (and his dialogue got old very fast), the vampires were unimpressive, the opening where Wolfe was singing on fire just felt kind of dumb and odd, then you have more serious and dark topics like racism, murders, abductions, etc. I didn't come away with a prevailing feeling of anything in particular. There is lot of mixing of the mundane and the fantastic (something that seems to be popular in indie comics lately) but none of the scenes really left much of an impression.

The art (outside of more fantastic coloring courtesy of all-star Lee Loughridge) was also inconsistent and unimpressive. Some scenes have a really harsh and angular feel while others are more muddy or lush. The photoreferenced backgrounds helped to give the book an "L.A." feel but stuck out badly and gave a bad Photoshop feel.

TLDR; I like the general concept of this book but the execution was kind of unimpressive and very, very inconsistent.

[keithly]

I liked what Kot was trying to do here but I don't think the book really succeeded in any way. Comic wasn't bad but I definitely don't think I'll be back.

One of my primary complaints is something that never occurred to me about Kot, but after reading this in someone's review of the issue it became really apparent. Kot writes a lot of dialogue that is ultimately meaningless and kind of just kills time. It doesn't really do much to set atmosphere or tone, he kinda just repeats himself or goes on tangents or throws out references. He really needs to tighten up his dialogue and go with the "less is more" approach. Some topics or ideas (the focus on "myth," the old white guy being racist) were repeated excessively and became tiresome. For an issue that was nearly triple the length of a standard comic, I don't think this accomplished enough to justify the page count.

The issue kind of had a weird balance in tone. I couldn't tell if it was meant to be silly or serious or weird or whatever. The tentacle guy was really silly (and his dialogue got old very fast), the vampires were unimpressive, the opening where Wolfe was singing on fire just felt kind of dumb and odd, then you have more serious and dark topics like racism, murders, abductions, etc. I didn't come away with a prevailing feeling of anything in particular. There is lot of mixing of the mundane and the fantastic (something that seems to be popular in indie comics lately) but none of the scenes really left much of an impression.

The art (outside of more fantastic coloring courtesy of all-star Lee Loughridge) was also inconsistent and unimpressive. Some scenes have a really harsh and angular feel while others are more muddy or lush. The photoreferenced backgrounds helped to give the book an "L.A." feel but stuck out badly and gave a bad Photoshop feel.

TLDR; I like the general concept of this book but the execution was kind of unimpressive and very, very inconsistent.

I agree with most of what you said here. I found the dialogue simply hard to read and follow. I kept feeling like a lot of the characters and dialogue was done just to try to be quirky, but it ended with a hard to read story and flat characters. The cover and the first few pages of art are great. The rest is nice.

I bought it because I liked the concept, but ended up disappointed.

[Big Geek]

My biggest issue with this book was that I found it incredibly generic. I was really excited for Wolf but I felt the writing was poor and the art very poor. I will not be back.