By: Jim McCann (writer), Janet Lee (art), Chris Sotomayor (colors), Dave Lanphear (letters)
The Story: A space-faring gambler gets conscripted to work at a Casino/Slave Ship.
Review: This issue was a total miss for me. Your mileage may vary, but I didn’t enjoy this on any level. My policy with negative reviews of creator-owned projects is to (i) draft a review, (ii) wait a day and (iii) if I still don’t like it, to be precise and specific about what I didn’t enjoy. Criticism of creator-owned comics is no time to show the world how funny and witty the reviewer is.
- Uninteresting subject matter – Stories about playing cards are boring. Some people may enjoy actually playing cards, but it is not interesting subject matter for a story.
- Failure to make the challenging subject matter enticing – I’m not interested in fashion design and cross-dressing either, but Fashion Beast holds my interest because Alan Moore has created a captivating story. I’m also not very interested in vampires, but love American Vampire because Scott Snyder has put a lot of substance into that story. Even with the handicap of dull subject matter, there was potential for Lost Vegas to be an enjoyable comic, but the creators just didn’t make it enticing enough.
- Too many words of inner monologue – Text boxes featuring the inner thoughts of the characters are fine, but they shouldn’t be the bulk of the communication to the reader. First-person storytelling is less interesting that third-person tales, because the complexities of at least one character – often the main character – are known to the reader. Lost Vegas uses way too many first-person, narration boxes.
- Lovable loser as protagonist – This is a personal complaint: I don’t enjoy reading about characters who are their own worst enemy when they are fully aware of their loser tendencies. I don’t want to read about the trouble they get into; I want them to get their act together. It’s hard for me to identify with or enjoy these characters.
- Humor isn’t fully committed to – The humor just isn’t raw enough for me. I like to see a story that commits fully to its humor. If much of the humor stems from this downbeat gambler being forced to work for this casino, don’t make him a waiter because being a waiter isn’t that bad. Many of us have been waiters in our lives. Make him do something horrid like clean the butt-crack of some monstrous alien or feed the yucky larval form of their alien overlords or sexually service ugly aliens.
- Solid, but not awesome art – There’s nothing wrong with the art, but it’s not good enough to carry the whole issue. This art would probably not be found in a comic that gets an “A”, but it would be right at home in a ton of “B” comics. Unfortunately, that isn’t good enough to carry the weak story.
So, who would enjoy this comic? Well, Jim McCann seems to have a decent audience (Return of the Dapper Men), so there are obviously some folks who just love his work. It’ll also be popular with the card-playing set and those who find more to identify with in this loser protagonist’s predicament. The humor is light-hearted and will probably work on people who enjoy network sitcoms.
Conclusion: Not a “bad” comic, but not a particularly compelling one either. Perhaps interesting to people who enjoy watching stories about gambling.
Grade: C
– Dean Stell
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