2 out of 5

Any time a comic takes me FOREVER to read – either I hesitate picking it up, or the actual reading is slow-going – it’s indicative of my feelings toward it.  Lucha Libre is bright and colorful and is published by fucking Humanoids which, though their track record isn’t perfect, the books are normally compelling… but man, Lucha Libre was not only a chore to read, but a snooze to read as well.  It’s not sloppy in execution, really, and typical of Frissen’s work, which has this weird undercurrent of perverse humor mixed with uncomfortably real pathos, and some of it is conceptually really funny, but it’s too scattershot to sink into, and too hefty dialogue-wise for what gives the appearance of being a funny book.

Part of the mess of this might be the culture-clash element – Frissen is born in Belgium, currently living in LA, writing a book for a French publisher about Mexican culture…  Whaaat?  And wiki lists Frissen as a toy designer, which indicates, perhaps, his connection here, as the Lucha Libre figures were a big quarter-machine purchase around the time of Lil’ Homies and the like (or whatever they were called), so there’s an uncomfortable “oh, you already recognize these characters because of the toy line” feel to the book which may or may not be true, I have no idea, but nonetheless it feels like a partial advertisement just due to the association.

This might’ve worked better from issue to issue, oddly, as the trade reassembles several stories (all written by Frissen, drawn by different artists) which were broken up in the original run.  I can see how just reading snippets of each tale – one about fighting some werewolf gangsters to rescue some aliens, one about a big ol’ wrestler named Tequila and the murder of which he’s wrongly accused, one about some Luchas as youth, and the training school they attended, and one (I think this is everything…) about some “science” themed luchadores – how just getting blurbs of each of these would work, in the same way that things like Métal Hurlant (where the Luchas first appeared) and 2000 A.D. stories tend to work better in their hyper-compressed, weekly / monthly format than when presented all at once.

The initial story, drawn by “Bill” (the one with the werewolves) works the best story-wise – it gives you the best sense of characters and allows for plenty of surreal humor but blends in a general direction of plot – but is indicative of the book as a whole, with pages clipping from moment to moment without much care for reader comprehension and some “funny” aspects just going for too long and being too random to get you to laugh.  The Gobi drawn “Tequila” is a horrible mess, with a really funny dumb, hulk-like lead character, but atrociously confusing paneling and pacing such that the story and resolution don’t exist until they’re over.  The Tikitis is fun, conceptually, but none of the characters are very likeable (an unfortunate Frissen quality to his writing) and, again, the actual plot seems like a sideline until you realize that it happened, though Fabien M’s art captures things most effectively in this collection, trying to work with Frissen’s staccato style instead of just splatting it on the page, and then the Professor Furia story, drawn by Witko, is short and sweet, amusing and anime-simple.  But even it feels padded out with more space than necessary.

I’m making this sound intolerable.  It… is… but there is an energy on the page that makes me want to like it, and I did chuckle at it from afar.  Brought together in one collection, though, this is an exhausting read, and brings Frissen’s weaknesses as a plotter to the surface.