1 out of 5

I disliked reading this so much that I hope I can keep my criticisms concise so as to be done with the experience sooner.

I’ll skip my Nth analysis of Grant’s evolution as a writer over the years and zip to one conclusion from that: That I shouldn’t try to put the writer in a particular box, as I generally can with others.  I have continued to enjoy both some of his DC stuff and his indie stuff; there’s maybe just more opportunity now to experience what I don’t like.  And just to be a poor reviewer and contradict myself, with an overview we can somewhat toss Morrison’s efforts onto a few general piles: Creation myths, this-is-how-the-world-works examinations, and self-reflective pieces.  Happy!, I think, can be set aside as its own thing right now, a (thus far) singular attempt at genre that, to me, really, really failed.

Because Grant has such a boxes-within-boxes view of the world, when he attempt the latter category – self-reflective, with recent examples being Joe the Barbarian and Annihilator – all the story pieces end up feeling like hand-waving about what amounts to a rather fragile core.  These thus tend to be lesser works of Grant’s, and I’d say he writes them less often.

The other two categories – the worldly-workings explanations maybe a subset of the creation myths – have been more successful, if occasionally overwrought (*koff* arkham asylum *koff*); earlier examples of this represent some of Grant’s best stuff, e.g. Filth, The Invisibles.  But when he got the keys to the DC universe, he leverages that skill into some pretty amazing achievements.

So what now?  Graphic India decided to earn some money by splashing his name on some titles, which have had more charm than they probably would have otherwise.  And now: Klaus.  Which I think we can see as Grant’s first attempt at creation myth in the larger world, outside of Marvel or DC confines.

(I said something about being concise, I think?  It was so long ago, I can’t recall.)

And while this is a great idea, elevator-pitchwise – the guy who rewrote DC Comics take on an international icon! – something massively went wrong when it got to the page.  Not only does it lack the wowing scope of his Superman / Batman / JLA efforts, it even lacks the minor charms of his Indian folklore retellings.  Why?  At a high level, I think Grant over-estimated Santa’s influence upon the world past his imagery, or rather, he doesn’t have the well-known background to repaint and re-present to fanboys’ delight.  There are no Santa fanboys.  And going forward with that assumption, he forgets to stage his origin tale in the same kind of hand-holding fashion as the Graphic India stuff.  So it ends up feeling like a lot of hoopla about nothing, and if I was, actually, forced to be concise, that’s what I’d settle on.

But it’s worse than that.

What I intended with my “don’t put Grant into a box” statement wasn’t so much about classifying his works (as I then subsequently did…), rather about making sure I don’t suddenly jump to saying that Morrison is a shit writer.  Because he’s not.  He’s as capable of it as any of us, but by and by, he knows his trade.  And yet, with Klaus, its like he’s never written a comic before.  Now it’s possible that because our central focus (Klaus) ends up being so uninteresting, I was more apt to notice other flaws, but either way, every side character in this tale had zero consistency.  Literally from page to page, panel to panel, they switch tones, and switch roles within the story.  Are we meant to sympathize?  To see them as comedic relief?  To view them as enemies?  And it’s not a case of failed character building – it’s a complete lack of it.  Dialogue is done in broad strokes that indicates one way of thinking, and then next page the stroke goes the other way.  I stopped caring almost immediately due to this.  There are further inconsistencies besides, regarding the characters’ beliefs toward magic, and then a general disconnect with the art – i.e. I say something and then I’m not really depicted sticking to it – which is as good a place as any to stop talking about Grant and switch to giving artist Dan Mora a hard time.

Dan, like Grant, is a solid creator.  While I have no history with the guy (unlike the author), his figure work is lively, reminiscent of Aladdin-era Disney, and his use of color highlights as negative space brings to mind Frazier Irving’s inking / coloring style, which is a plus.  The two also share a good sense of page layout, Dan favoring a generally vertical eyeline in a highlight panel atop of which he pops his smaller.  He’s pretty great at pinups, which is why the covers look good (although designer Scott Newman certainly deserves credit for Klaus’ slick packaging), and why you might spot his signature on interior splash pages, which happen often.

The good news stops there, as does the grasp of comic bookness.  My overwhelming problem with the art – much like the writing – was its lack of consistency, but visually, that translates to perspective.  So, so many panels favor cool visual over guidance, meaning the our point of view constantly flip-flops, which really kills momentum and any sense of build up.

An early example is Klaus approaching the toyless, unless town of Grimsvig.  Opening page is Klaus walking toward the camera, next page a big splash of the town.  That’s fine.  Next page shows a view into the town through the gates (Klaus’ POV), then the camera reverses to outside, showing Klaus trying to enter.  Then a side view which serves no purpose except to show Klaus entering, and an over-the-shoulder view of him walking through town, but a section of town not visible in that first shot.  Build-build-build… Then shattered.  It’s rather filmic, and makes for fine page layout, but the actually framed events are not chosen well, and create zero sense of space.

Later, this will translate to action, where a character performs an action traveling off to the right, only to have the action come in from the right on the next page. Ugh.

This is besides those instances where Klaus is at “a dead end” or supposedly jumping from a great height and the art doesn’t depict that.

I don’t know much about letterer Ed Dukeshire, but the inconsistencies I’ve highlighted couldn’t have been fun to letter, as no character can settle into a tone, and the art is both too animated (the figurework) and too stiff (the non-comic aspect) to properly make characters “sound” angry or timid through the letters.

Sigh.

Lastly, I have to point out that having Klaus in a sleeveless muscle tee while sporting otherwise wintered-gear was dumb-as-fuck “it looks cool” costume design.  And if it was some part of his “doesn’t feel the cold” mystique, that never came through.  I’m also always curious what causes series’ lengths to change, as issue 1 and 2 called this a 6 issue mini-series before issue 3 bumped it up to 7.  Like, what did you realize you couldn’t contain in your original plan?

In case you missed it (because I forgot to mention it, which is all meta for a review the criticizes a book for not laying down effective groundwork), Klaus is a comic-book telling of Santa Klaus’ origin, bringing in some of the original folklore and funneling it through widescreen sci-fi.  It’s a good idea, and maybe if it wasn’t botched by talented people its failures would be more tolerable, but alas.