COMIC BINGE: The Wake by Scott Snyder & Sean Murphy
I was extremely excited for this week’s main selection for the Comic Binge. You’ve probably been able to tell by now that I adore everything Scott Snyder does, whether it be writing a new Batman story, or talking about his experiences with some of our favorite heroes. Scott Snyder is that up-and-coming, and maybe possibly has already come (hehe), writer/artist that our generation of comic book readers needed. We need Snyder to be able to justify our reading habits to those who don’t understand comics, or refuse to understand their power and how it’s remained a relevant medium over the years. Scott Snyder writes good books, period. His Batman titles are brilliant, and of course I have a little bias, but still they are held as some of the best Batman writing since the classics like Grant Morrison. His original works like American Vampire have been nothing short of entertaining, and really continues to get crazier and crazier. So with all of that said, I was pretty stoked to be reading Snyder’s new book The Wake for this week’s Binge. However, I was pretty let down at the end of the read. The Wake won the 2014 Eisner Award for Best Limited Series, along with Sean Murphy who also assisted him with efforts in American Vampire. I can see why the title won the award, as weird has always dominated the awards arenas for comic books, but I’m not entirely sure what I missed that everyone else got.
The book I think starts off on a bad foot, showing the “present” with a character narrating the imagery on the page. There’s a girl riding around on what seems to be a trained dolphin, through a city that looks like it has been overrun with water. The city she’s in is flooded, and the more you read, the more of an apocalyptic feeling you get from the narration. Flip the next couple pages, and you’re in the past. Now it’s time to show you how we got to that first page. That right there, is a typical story-telling device used to illustrate what looks really plain but eventually becomes something with much more meaning once the story is developed. This, is something I feel like Scott Snyder did because many of his stories utilize this, but it just didn’t work here. I was lost right off the bat, and once you get in to the past and where it all came from, it’s even more confusing. You know that this character that was introduced at the beginning has to be important, but you’re not sure why. You also aren’t sure which character she is, because again like another book I read recently, it’s really hard to tell which character is which on the page. There are two characters in this book that look exactly the same save a different haircut, and they just so happen to be two of the book’s main characters. I may be annoyed and nagging about something that shouldn’t be as annoying, but I wanted to like this book. I really wanted to like this book, a lot.
What I was left with after reading, was this feeling that I’d ultimately been disappointed by the man I so recently came to trust with anything he wanted to do. Scott Snyder was going to bring back a Garbage Pail Kids title? Fine. Scott Snyder wants to re-write the third Transformers movie into a comic of his own? Sure. Scott Snyder is going to do aquatic monsters a la Pacific Rim? Are you fucking kidding me, I’m in! The result is not quite what you’d hoped for, but you know it had to have been Snyder’s best attempt at it. The book looks great, with Murphy’s familiar artwork illustrating Scott’s words. The book even reads really well, as I never once did put it down in favor of something else. However, I think it was my hope for grasping the story or something at the end of the book, and that moment never really came. Fortunately, I only borrowed the book per usual, and was able to just return it when I was done. I was unable to return my feelings to where they came from, but I do have a feeling that I may enjoy the book a little more upon another reading. I don’t think there’s a problem with the book, as the Eisner Awards aren’t just handed out for having a popular name in the industry, typically. I think it was more a problem with my headspace during the time of reading, and just that I wasn’t quite ready for the story Snyder was about to tell. I would still suggest that if you’re interested, to give it a try, as my opinion seems to be of the unpopular variety. But if you were on the fence, or if you have come to expect A+ Scott Snyder on his every outing, you may want to wait for a lower price or the ability to borrow the book. It’s neat, looks great, and the concept is there, but it just wasn’t executed on the level I had hoped. The worst Scott Snyder book I have ever read, but that’s really not saying that it’s that bad, in comparison to his otherwise incredible portfolio.
RATED : ( R )
STORY : ( 6 / 10 )
ARTWORK : ( 8 / 10 )
COVERS : ( 9 / 10 )
AWESOME : ( 5 / 10 )
FINAL RATING : ( 6 / 10 )