Written by Adam P. Knave and D.J. Kirkbride, Illustrated by Nick Brokenshire. Lettered by Rachel Deering
Review by Ziah Grace
One of the most oft-repeated writing tips is “Show, don’t tell” but Amelia Cole and the Unknown World creates an impressive first issue by doing both in a way that feels exciting and surprising.
Frankenhole season 2 has been troubling me so far – while the show is still one of the most beautiful shows there is especially in HD where you can see the detail in each of the puppets, I feel the show has lost some of the spark by being too mundane.
I will confess I haven’t seen every season 1 episode but what I have seen have blown every current episode of the humorous waters with perhaps the exception of H.P. Lovecraft’s Vagina. Part of it might simply be the fact that the show doesn’t seem to be trying as hard to introduce anything new. During the last season each episode gave us a new historical figure with a problem that got solved with the exception of Death (which still remains one of my favorite episodes). With that said though Death was a character who got fleshed out and still had a hilarious problem that tied into the story and rounded out Frankenstein as the horrible monster that he is. Frankenstein really didn’t even try to get humanized until Humanitas and even then he ultimately resided to the fact that he was pretty monstrous.
The current season though hasn’t really built on the characters and none of the featured characters really got a chance to build themselves up in the same way. Dr. Jekyll might well be the closest we got and even then the episode was focus on Frankenstein’s monster and ultimately surrendered to a pretty poor joke which was scientists/nerds are afraid of emotion.
Seriously? That is almost on the level of offense as Comic Book Men for the nerdy. I mean you could have stuck in a woman and have gotten the same effect with the same joke – nerds don’t like women/emotions.
And that has been another thing, minus H.P. Lovecraft’s Vagina (and even partially in that) the jokes have been really old hat standards. Loudmouths was the stereotype that black people are loud at movies – except hey they are vampires instead. And then the episode sort of meandered looking for something with Joe Yunger, the Southern vampire hunter being into the founding fathers and then they all became vampires and he got over the issue – because Frankenstein couldn’t figure out a better solution – I mean really Frankenstein the guy who pissed off Death can’t find a solution. The guy who lead to an all Ron Howard three-way can’t do something about vampires – he is suddenly weak and powerless. He didn’t even try to kill the Vampire-ish PETA supporters himself. What happened to the guy who made the woman he though he loved immortal? Where are the balls (besides being in some horrible torture device)?
The one time that they did bring in a guest character was also a pretty unbearable episode – John Belushi turning into Jim Belushi can be a funny idea but here it was just painful to watch. My dad was watching with me and he didn’t get it. The idea just came and went with no force – oh we get it everyone likes John and hates Jim and they turn into each other. What goes beyond that? Where is the were-Lawrence multiple levels of insanity.
The season is most likely finished as far as production and there will probably be another year or so before the next season and I’m going to keep watching the series with hopes that we get another solid episode or two. Andy Dick as Jesus is always good for a laugh.
Sorry for being rambly but I figured shooting out all the ideas would be the best way to let it go.
Luke
I’ll say it right here – I am not a wrestling guy but I love this series. Super Pro K.O. vol 2 is the sequel to the highly enjoyable wrestling comic that picks up after Joe Somiano, the rookie wrestler, finished his first big wrestling match. With time passing and without any new screen time Joe takes it upon himself to get his name out. Meanwhile the complex wrestling politics lead to wrestler getting attacked and even more mysteries.
Part of the reason I don’t like wrestling is that when I see it, it goes too slow, it’s fake and I just don’t see it as exciting. Where SPKO Vol 2 succeeds is that the action is nonstop, it’s chaotic – battles fly across the pages and while the action scenes read so well there is an immense amount of fun things happening in the comic and in the background (such as the Oni Press staff showing up or the numerous Scott Pilgrim matches).
Creator and illustrator Jarret Williams shows immense tact in the story with something that could not work as a monthly title and what he is able to do with the book tops so many of the mangas I’ve read as far as action goes. I mean I was pulled in, heart pounding and I enjoyed myself.
The one shaky bit though is that the series had a very sequel-y feeling to it. There isn’t much that is resolved or at least, I did not find a satisfying conclusion like I did at the end of volume one. With that said though, the book did a fantastic job of making me look forward to the 3rd volume and it was a hoot to read through it.
Arbitrary Rating – A-
