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7 Days to Fame
Book Released: 5 October 2005
Review posted: 21 October 2005
Writer: Buddy Scalera
Artist: Nick Diaz
Publisher: After Hours Press
4.00 out of 5 Stars
Reviewed by Adam White
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After reading an interview with Buddy Scalera on his new mini-series, 7 Days to Fame, I was intrigued enough to pick it up. 7 Days to Fame follows the story of the reporter and producer of a local television station’s 2 a.m. interview program that try to find something to make their show more interesting. After the two inadvertently witness a suicide, one has an idea that might take the show higher than they can imagine.
Scalera and Diaz examine humanity and Americans’ preoccupation with violence and death
but leave it open to interpretation, which
is what all good fiction should do.
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Buddy Scalera knocks one out of the park with his script — the characters are very real, and the dialogue and pace of the story is fast and leaves you wanting more at the end. Scalera also touches on a topic that very few directly approach, which is the American fixation on violence and death. Violence takes on many forms in America, but rarely do you see the actual lives that it affects or the true reasons behind it. 7 Days to Fame shows just that without being preachy or sounding like a public service announcement — the traps most fiction falls into when treading that territory. What kind of person kills him- or herself, and why? Why are people so fascinated by violence and death? These questions are deftly examined by Scalera’s timely script and he writes it in a straightforward fashion without the typical sensationalism you’d find in television news. Scalera doesn’t focus on the flashiness of the violence, but on what was behind it, and that gives the book its strength and validity.
The art by Nick Diaz works for the most part, and he does especially well at drawing real people instead of supermodels. Occasionally we’ll see a character at an angle that seems a bit skewed, perspective-wise, but it doesn’t detract from the overall product. Diaz also focuses on the characters and not the violence, showing virtually none of the actual bloodshed, etc. This works in favor of the book as well, because avoiding the sensationalism of the deaths lets the story focus on the reality of them, and it makes the book much more effective emotionally (what you don’t see is scarier than what you do see). I think Diaz has a lot of potential, especially since he puts storytelling before flash.
Don’t get the wrong impression: 7 Days to Fame is not about a massive body count; only two unrelated deaths occur in the first issue, and it focuses on the reactions, not the blood, and that’s what makes the story work so well. Scalera and Diaz examine humanity and especially Americans’ preoccupation with violence and death, but leave it open to interpretation so that each reader can effectively draw his or her own conclusion (which is what all good fiction should do). Scalera and Diaz have produced a comic that tackles a very serious issue and simultaneously proves an entertaining read, and we could all use more of that in comics.
—CCdC— Cover image used without explicit permission in accordance with the "Fair Use" provision of US copyright law.
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