samedi 3 août 2013

Heroic #1

A dead hero, a depressed icon and one young boy who's difficult life and destiny will clash.

All this and more in HEROIC #1 a current Kickstarter project helmed by Andrew Collas writer of this new comicbook.

There's a lot to be said about the book but here's what I could muster up in terms of opinions (since you know I'm pretty reticent to criticize stuff) this is mostly my appraisal of what the cultural object represents and what it could mean as a book.

 Heroic brings back familiar tropes but with renewed intent. The alcoholic father or the disillusioned superhero are not inserted in the story as placemats but mostly to show that there is a reason they became tropes in the first place. If these figures and events have been going around for so long it must be because they are somewhat efficient at conveying a kind of emotion or situation know by many of us. A strong point of Heroic is that they are not used as shortcuts for content. The tropes and cliches (if you can call them that, I personally don't like the word) feel like they are there out of genuine appreciation. In his writing, Andrew Collas presents a deep affection for this codes any good superhero comic reader could (and will) recognize.

But the actual interest of this story is not in what we know of the genre but where it chooses to stray from its known path. What would strike a first time reader is how much Heroic is filled with micro alterations to the recognizable patterns. In that manner, writer Collas seems to have preferred creating slight changes that matter instead of going ballz out an flipping stuff over for no reason. It's subtle and very appreciated, becasue in the end it gives more maturity to the interpretation of these tropes and actually has us expecting more interesting developments. One might say that by changing the course of known events just a little bit, Heroic presents itself as a work of fiction with more potential than the usual "We'll do this because no one has ever seen it or expected it" Heroic is clearly not made to shock people into paying attention but mostly to present something that has interest beyond the initial shock value.

And it’s to no use pointing that out if I was trying to convey a sense of banality, for this book is far from it. Indeed, what Heroic has triumphantly accomplished (in my regards) is to refusing to attempt reinvented the superhero comic as a publicity stunt to bring the jaded and satiated comic fan to purchase the book. What it has in fact done is brought some necessary updates to a reality that doesn't seem to progressed of the past 25 years.

Although socially responsible and progressive, what the universe of Heroic has challenged itself to do was to present a world that is neither utopia nor dystopia, it holds its place in the middle of what we know to be our reality and inserts superhero elements in it, aptly resurrecting the feeling brought by childhood books : "this is my life, my world, my reality, only there's something super about it".

 Can't say anything about the art yet, since the project, currently being reviewed by the Kickstarter board of mecènes is still in progress, but the ambition is there and if they could get someone that draws old school classic, Walt Simonson or dare is say Dale Eaglesham, I'd be down for a dozen.

Kickstart here

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