Preordering Is Hell
Hey! Previews Review is back again! They're still behind on
the big Previews Reviews (the most recent one covers stuff shipping in
Nov. 2003 but the Previews for comics shipping in Jan. 2004 is already
out), but the
Shipping
This Week column is up for today, 11/5/03. There are a
couple books listed that sound interesting but which will probably wait
for my next round of bulk buying from Amazon (
Palomar,
Buddha).
The thing I really wanted to comment on was Christopher Butcher's
focused mini-critique of
Arrowsmith. Basically, Butcher
argues that
Arrowsmith, a series about the horrors of war,
fails to actually convey a sense of horror regarding any of the
horrific things that happen in war. I completely agree with this
critique. I thought
Arrowsmith got off to a promising
start but subsequent issues have seemed awfully dull. Worse, the
characters are painfully stiff and wooden. It seems as though the
characters
talk about their reactions more than they actually
react
(which might be a general trend in Busiek's writing; I'll have to
think more about this later). There are still a couple issues to
go before the story ends (and thanks to preordering I'm already getting
all of 'em) so things might improve, but the issues I've read so far
don't give me much hope.
