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Thursday, December 07, 2006
Supermarket
There's a scene early on in Supermarket that defines the book's star, Pella Suzuki, and the book itself. Coming downstairs for breakfast the teenager lectures her mother about the plight of farmers who never see any real money from the billion-dollar coffee industry. After taking that first sip in the morning Pella's sermon is interrupted so she can ask her mother "Is this Sumatran? S'good." That uneasy co-existence of two contradictory notions, enjoying the spoils of the industrial world while still knowing the injustices behind those spoils, is at the heart of both Pella's character and the book. Brian Wood and Kristian Donaldson have created a comic that stars a would-be revolutionary who decries her urban surroundings while reveling in the almost sci-fi aesthetic of today's cities and their cultures.
After reading all available issues of both Demo and Local I realize that Wood's great strength as a writer is that he is capable of perfectly syncing up a story's rhythm and pace to the emotional information of the characters he wants to get across. Both those series tell a whole story in one issue and the best of them feel like they have the impact of a 200-page graphic novel after we've seen what these characters go through. In Demo you can actually read Wood mature as a writer as the series goes along, leading up to the poetic final issue. Local proves that Wood can practice this type of storytelling outside of fantasy and sci-fi tropes. The first issue of that series is wonderful, it builds drama from the repetition of a sequence like a good pop song does.
That awareness of how structure and characterization intertwine also shows up in Supermarket but in a much more traditional way. With four issues Wood has time to go back and forth between major action scenes as cool down periods where Pella contemplates her modern day anxieties. The plot has Pella on the run in what looks like a hyperreal version of Los Angeles. The parents who provided her with the upper-class lifestyle which she resented have been killed. It is revealed that Pella's father was in with the Yakuza while her mother was a member of an outfit that went by the delicious moniker the Porno Swedes. Orphaned and cut off from her savings Pella uses her wits to save herself from this Grand Theft Auto-esque situation. Unfortunately being a rich girl from Woodland Hills her wits are not exactly best applicable to these types of situations. Thankfully young Yakuza renegade Beta is there as a guardian angel in cool sneakers. Kristian's art makes these action bits successful. His art has a lot of stylistic touch of manga-ka's like Taiyo Matsomoto with the design sense of Western comics. It's fun to see how much kinetic energy he packs into scenes where a mob of Yakuza soldiers, with their guns, swords and swirling cigarette smoke, chase after a teenage girl through malls and parking lots.
Kristian also colored the book and creates an overall look for the comic that is stunning and reminiscent of little I've seen before. The post-modern enviroment of Supermarket is full of giant structures of pink and orange enveloping characters dressed in dark clothing. The colors of a scene will sometimes change between panels, not unlike lights illuminating different subjects as the camera angles move. The glare of neon lights and cell phone screens are cast on the book's players like shadows. Supermarket has a real "Pop Art" flavor but it's not a throwback to the '60s. It's Pop Art for a world where comics like these can be read on computers and most likely soon on cell phones and other portable devices.
The beauty that Kristian wrings from such industrialization comes with knowing, as Pella is not afraid to inform the reader, of the soullessness of "the sprawl." Pella's attitude is fittingly righteous and adolescent but when faced with trauma the character's facade falters. There's a powerful scene where Pella finds solace in the all the offerings found in a luxurious hotel suite. She is forced to grow up and realize now that she knows of the truth behind the modern world and her family, how she is going to live in this world. How, if she desires to, will she change things?
Unfortunately that question isn't quite answered. The story moves along nicely with Pella, Beta, Beta's Swedish girlfriend (they become something of surrogate parents to Pella) coming close to defeating the rival gangs. Then Wood's mastery of structure falters and falters bad. The story doesn't end as much as it comes to a halt. Pella gets a pre-recorded message from her mother that basically tells her "everything's cool now" and it is. With a few word balloons of exposition all the dramatic conflict is sucked out and Pella and her friends are free to live happily ever after. It's a disappointing way to end what was reading like a great rollick done with great skill by both its creators.
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