3 out of 5

Does not cover the “Hell On Earth” bit that was intended as a second book but ended up being reprinted along with volume 1 in 2013

I straight-up hated Cherubs! when I first read it.  I’d built up some love for Talbot due to ‘Tale of One Bad Rat’ and the ‘Grandville’ books that were out at the time, and I’d stumbled across Luther Arkwright and though that book didn’t make the cut because I couldn’t focus through more than a few pages of it, I respected the artistry… even if it was a little floofy-doo… but the dude worked on Sandman, so I expect some indulgences in his career.  And Cherubs! hit the shelf and I thought it would be a fun chance for Talbot to let loose a little bit, and for all of the intelligence and patience of ‘Rat’ and the outright world-designing chops of ‘Grandville,’ ‘Cherubs!’ just seemed like a cheap joke with a cheap story, the “ain’t kids swearin’ funny” crutch used to punch us through a short mini-novel.  I read it in a night, thought it puerile, and set it aside to give away.

Well, like a week ago, upon discovering this upcoming re-release of Cherubs!, I committed a common me-act of re-buying the book on the off-chance that I’d judged it too hastily.  And you know what?  It ain’t a masterpiece by any means, but I do think I was reading it entirely incorrectly before, and with my expectations kept in check, I was able to see the quirks of the story that I’d missed, and better able to appreciate how well artist Mark Stafford’s denser Robert Crumbesque art fit the book.

Still, you have to swallow the initial premise without thinking about it too much:  An archangel, Aabadon, tired of life in heaven, agrees – via a deal with “Lucy,” – to mow down some of the ruling class in the clouds in order to reap some hellish rewards on Earth.  He does so and is witnessed in the act by a group of cherubim.  But Aabadon escapes, literally leaving the lil’ nakeduns with the smoking gun, and some heaven police pretty much just assume that it must’ve done been them damn cherubs that did it.  So, reasoning that the real baddie escaped to our blue and green planet, the cherubim outrun the Heaven-5-0 and head for Earth.  The “old man” is mentioned a few times, and it is implied that people know what’s up in heaven, so it seemed sketchy to me – on the first read, on this read – that the kids are just outright assumed to be the killers.  Sure, you can read into it if you want, as Talbot pitches heaven as the mundane type of afterlife, so maybe there’s not really a comprehension of deception up there… so no way for someone else to have done it if exhibit A seems to suggest those cherubs right over there…  But that’s really reading into it, looking for an explanation when I feel like we’re just supposed to accept this on sitcom logic.  Which is fine, you can say it matches the tone, but since its the springboard for our story proper, it feels clunky, and seems like it could’ve been scripted more successfully.

So that’s our leap – ha ha – of faith.  The mistake I made the first time, though, was in reading this like the crudeness was the joke.  Talbot does get some mileage out of it, but it’s not exactly just the juxtaposition of “children” (since the cherubs have been around forever and are more exactly called ‘ageless’) and the scatalogical – before anything goes awry, these kids are swearing in heaven and spying on chicks in the lockeroom – it’s… it’s just cute because it’s just a human behavior, there’s no real motivation attached to it.  They don’t know the words are wrong, and there’s no sexuality behind looking at the naked girls.  Hence some of the boredom of heaven, I suppose, where we’re just going through the motions.  Thus when they get to Earth, and befriend a stripper named Mary (again… ha ha… but here’s where I was over-reading it before, because I took this to be an attempt at a “clever” joke that’s dirtied up with the stripper aspect, but Talbot has the cupids innocently assume she’s a virgin, and not really understand what her job is, or why it arouses them with she gives an example), it’s a strange sort of rediscovery of the disgustingess of being human, of puking, of farting, of waking up tired and hungry… so yes, it’s worth some chuckles when a tattooed cherub belches loudly, but it’s approached as honestly as possible given the loose scenario we’ve been pitched.

Taking out the concept that any of this was trying to be overly clever and was just Bryan logically following the threads he’d laid down allowed me to actually dig the story more, which is ridiculous – draculas, frankensteins, Judge Dreddish angels coming to hunt the cherubs… there are some really odd one-panel tributes in here, and again, I’ll hand it to Stafford – it’s easy to overlook his work as sloppy or, rather, as just an easy cartoonish cast-off, but I really haven’t seen such a successful mash-up of his expressive styles with such gorgeously dense and layered inks – it’s not just smudges of blacks, he only darkens it up where apropos, keeps the lines looser and squirlier elsewhere – and an equal capability of showing convincing action sequences that don’t sacrifice his chosen style.

Overall you see I still gave this thing a mid-rating, because the rewards aren’t really on the surface, and it is, in truth, more of just a distraction piece than a major accomplishment, but I think that was the ultimate goal.  And because they apparently didn’t get the purchases needed to put out the second book, I assume most others passed this by in the same way I did.  But I’m glad I revisited it… I just hope I can get the followup without having to rebuy Cantica 1, ye bastards.