Joe Golem, Occult Detective: The Rat Catcher

[HsssH]

Again, I agree that it's a little lighter than it could have been. They said you didn't need to have read the novel, and you don't, but I think you'll enjoy it more if you have. They can't remove that info from their heads, and how they're writing this, and it shows.

I guess I was a bit too harsh, I don't want to say that this title is unreadable or something like that. I think its well written and art is, as you said, wonderful. But there are many comics that have decent writing and nice art. I think that without strong hook or characterizations it simply doesn't stand out much and its hard to justify picking this title over some other stuff.

[MajorHoy]

I guess I was a bit too harsh, I don't want to say that this title is unreadable or something like that. I think its well written and art is, as you said, wonderful. But there are many comics that have decent writing and nice art. I think that without strong hook or characterizations it simply doesn't stand out much and its hard to justify picking this title over some other stuff.

But then again, there are only two more issues to go.

[Joker]

I expect we'll see more after this pretty quickly.

Hopefully seeing Church in the field with Joe will alleviate some of the issues with this story. I'd hate for the first collection to fall short of its potential. Church is a great character in the book and I'd love to see him developed in the comic, too.

[middenway]

I expect we'll see more after this pretty quickly.

I expect we'll bounce back and forth between Joe Golem and Baltimore. Five months of one, then five months of the other.

[Kirby101]

I liked it as well. Reading the novel probably helped, but the story was easy to follow, even if there wasn't the complete characterization. But think of it this way, if the book was based on a movie instead of a novel, nobody would complain. It is assumed that everybody knows about the characters from a movie.
I would like to see them do a comic version of the novel at some point. (a movie would be pretty cool too)

For novel readers do we think it was spoilers:

Cocteau

end of spoilers that experimented on the fishman?

[LobsterJohnson]

I
For novel readers do we think it was spoilers:

Cocteau

end of spoilers that experimented on the fishman?

Wow, I didn't even think about that. I guess it's been too long since I read the novel. Interesting guess.

[Joker]

That's what I thought, yes. It falls in line with the gas mask men enough to assume... assuming we'll find out later where it came from.

[thwhtGuardian]

By way of comparison the critiques I have for Joe Golem are non-existent in Baltimore: The Plague Ships. In that short series, and even in just the first issue, you got a very clear picture of who Baltimore was, what he was doing and a good feel for the world he lived in and you can't say the same for this series. We don't know who Church and Joe are, or have a good read on their personalities, we don't really know why they choose to do what they do and other than the briefest of explanations of the drowned city we don't get a good feel for it or even have a good view of it as by and large we don't see Joe travel around it much and instead he just shows up where he needs to go while on the other hand in the novel however we got great descriptions of the city and how culture adapted to the changes, so it's not as if the world can't be showcased.

I think what's hamstringing the comic more than anything else is the fact that it's set before the novel, and when doing that there is a tendency to be slightly less intrepid out of fear of upsetting what is to come after.

[Kirby101]

I do wonder if they are working on a sequel novel and don't want to interfere with that story.

[Joker]

We know who Joe and Church are, as much as is needed to tell this story. We don't need to know why they do what they do yet. Some stories and characters require specific motivations. This one didn't. I agree we could have used more character building in the personality department, though.

I disagree on the city itself. We saw what we needed to understand the setting. A novel allows a lot more room for exposition like that than a comic does. I'm sure over time we'll see and understand more of the city and its inhabitants. Especially our main protagonists.

I just didn't have as many problems with this series as some of you, but I guess I was just fine going into it knowing it's following a pretty classic noir detective trope and took it for what it was.

[thwhtGuardian]

We know who Joe and Church are, as much as is needed to tell this story. We don't need to know why they do what they do yet. Some stories and characters require specific motivations. This one didn't. I agree we could have used more character building in the personality department, though.

I disagree on the city itself. We saw what we needed to understand the setting. A novel allows a lot more room for exposition like that than a comic does. I'm sure over time we'll see and understand more of the city and its inhabitants. Especially our main protagonists.

I just didn't have as many problems with this series as some of you, but I guess I was just fine going into it knowing it's following a pretty classic noir detective trope and took it for what it was.

I don't think it was enough to tell the story though, because there was nothing more to Joe than a classical tough guy there was no reason to empathize with him which sapped away any tension from his fight with the fishman (because if you aren't attached to him emotionally why do you care if he dies?) and likewise because there is no emotional investment you don't feel conflicted about Church drugging him so he can't remember who he is.

And I still argue that there wasn't enough of the city to sell you on just how unique a setting it was, we needed a scene like this

It would have taken a page at most and totally sold the city as a totally unique local with its own culture but what we got instead was vague, it could have been set in venice rather than the cool half drowned culture we got in the book.

The last issue was a huge step in the right direction but for the casual reader I think it was too late as both of my friends declined to read further than the second issue and I can't really blame them.