By: Steve Niles (writer), Tony Harris (art), Bill Tortolini (letters)
The Story: Something about 1930’s era gangsters and demonic forces and Egypt. It’s really not very clear….
Review: This comic issue really challenges the idea of buying a comic “just to look at the art” because it looks amazing–but doesn’t have much story.
From an art standpoint, you won’t find many comics that look better than Chin Music #1. It’s really glorious stuff. I love all the interesting things that Tony Harris does with his panel borders. He really turns the panel borders into part of the artwork with all these filigrees and whatnot. I don’t know whether to wish that more artists drew inspiration from Harris or to cringe at the thought of artists doing non-expert jobs aping Tony Harris panel borders. Regardless, if you’re interesting in seeing someone playing around with the concept of the entire page in a comic being a work of art, then this is an issue worth checking out.
At a more basic level, Harris’ characters and colors look great too. This is so much better than the photo-realistic stuff he has done in the past. The man can draw and really tells a sequential story well. I love how you can kinda tell with some artists that they just love to ink. Harris looks like he LOVES inking. Of course, all artists will do inking, but some guys (I think) enjoy the act of creation with the rough pencil images and look at inking as a chore to accomplish before the page can be called “finished”. Not Harris. He looks like he relishes that part of the job that allows his pages to really sing. This is also a wonderfully colored issue: lots of warm, burnt oranges and rich brown. The whole comic has a lovely look and feel due to the coloring.
With such great art, the story only needs to be “competent” and you have a winner. Unfortunately, I’m not sure we can say that about this story. In fact, I’m not really sure what the story is even about. We do get several distinct scenes in the issue, and they kinda interconnect, but not in any way that “hooks me” the way a #1 issue should. That’s surprising because the issue was written by Steve Niles and he has enough of a track record that we can assume “competence” as a writer. I mean, Niles isn’t my favorite writer, but he’s written enough comics to understand the basic mechanics of how to create an quasi-entertaining story. Thus, it is a little surprising that the story felt so sparse and disjointed. I guess if you either (a) like Steve Niles, (b) enjoy 1930’s gangster comics mixed with demonic forces or (c) adore the art of Tony Harris, there is reason to remain hopeful and buy issue #2. I’ll probably be back for another bite of the apple, but it won’t be with very high expectations.
Conclusion: The art is off-the-charts; the story is almost non-existent.
Grade: C
– Dean Stell
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Conclusion