2 out of 5

Confession: I haven’t read this whole series.  Only a couple issues.  And I held on to them for a while.  I mean… I wasn’t really aware of their existence until a friend shoved them in my face, and at that point, I sort of stayed away from them, over-Wachowski’d by goth and lonely kids’ love for The Matrix, which, at that point, I had begun to brush off as pretty trite and just visual candy, over “be yourself and fight” nonsense that hides behind a cool look and sunglasses.  I still have to revisit those movies to confirm or dismiss my judgments (note that I’ve only seen Matrix 1 and 2 and it was yyyears ago, like at time of their release), but for some reason I came back around to digging on Burlyman Entertainment comics via Shaolin Cowboy… which had also been shoved in my face and brushed off, but, I dunno… maybe Geof Darrow’s art was on a cover and I was ridiculously blown away by it and then traced it back to Shaolin?  And then when I realized that the issues were becoming more rare and expensive by the day I tried to nab what I could fine, some kind of gold-prospectin’ nonsense that my brain does to me…

Luckily, I actually dig Shaolin Cowboy’s combination of extreeeme randomness and Darrow’s wickedly detailed art.  I should note that it’s written by Darrow, with only an intro per issue by the brothers, and the intros are amusing, but itch a certain “this is obnoxious” itch that I was never sure was leftover association with the films…

Anyhow, around this time, I bought a couple Doc Frankenstein issues out of some similar passion – Steve Skroce’s art isn’t as detailed as Darrow’s, but Burlyman has high production qualities, and the story has hallmarks of random fun, so I read ’em and bagged ’em, and never returned.  Now I read ’em again.  Honestly – that itch is no longer there.  But the writing is obnoxious.  I can sense / understand the Wachowski’s purposefully pushing the big idea concept as their way of using the comic format to tell a story that couldn’t effectively be told on screen, but the “I know the Bible and reject it” dharma shit that was in Matrix is in the issues I have, only waxed over with ridiculous dialogue that’s freed of any “subtlety” in approaching their dislike of religion that making films for a major production company might have caused… and let’s get something straight – I’m not religious, but the logic-spouting prick who spits in the face of the Pope is just as stupidly extreme and eye-rollingly stereotypical as the religious zealot…

Doc Frankenstein is purportedly about Frankenstein’s Monster after the fact, and he’s super smart and shoots guns and stuff.  The Church is after him because he’s blasphemous.  Possibly that’s resolved after the issues I have (although there are only 7 issues), but that aside, the Brothers show no grip on pacing or plotting or character in what I’ve read, “telling” me what’s what through endless panels of text and jumping from scene to scene without any sense of transition.  I would say that I’m missing out on things that were established in previous issues, but… no, there are some things that are definitely new in the issue that I’m reading, and they’re presented with a cool hat and some “fuck you” dialogue that I guess is just supposed to win us over because it looks neat.  There ARE some good ideas and it DOES look neat, but excusing my not being on board with how normal these anti-establishment themes are (especially, again, for the black-clad crew that tends to get forever aligned with The Matrix), it’s not composed in a fashion that makes me really want to read another issue.

I realize I’m getting worked up and being overly harsh, which is why I’m allowing a second crampon or star, because there is heart here, just as there is passion behind the movies.  But there’s a reason Shaolin Cowboy issues are mighty expensive and you can still pick up Doc for pretty cheap… it’s just not that good, despite the shape of some nifty concepts bouncing around and doodled up effectively by Mr. Skroce.