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Jack Staff #19
Posted 10 Dec 2008
Writer: Paul Grist
Artist: Paul Grist
Publisher: Image
2.00 out of 5 Stars
Reviewed by Ian Chant
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I should preface this by saying that I want to like Jack
Staff. The dialogue is solid and the art is unique and charming.
Paul Grist’s slightly loony, fractured book following the antic
exploits of “Britain’s Greatest Hero” and his
seemingly endless supporting cast of kooky, colorful comrades and
outrageous ne’er-do-wells manages some moments that are
thoroughly entertaining. But it’s just this enormous supporting
cast, consisting of telepaths, shape-shifters, immortal warriors,
robots, hard bitten detectives, vampires and, of course, vampire
hunters, just to name a few, that makes the book so hard to take.
Every issue zigs and zags crazily back and forth, trying to tie half a
dozen disparate stories into one overarching, sensible storyline.
Unfortunately, Grist seems incapable, or at least uninterested, in
creating this storyline.
“Characters and storylines are
introduced only to vanish and reappear spontaneously.”
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There are plenty of books on the shelf that handle oversized casts
with grace and finesse, developing peripheral characters and crafting
intelligent subplots without detracting from the story that grounds
the book. Take Invincible, which manages to craft fully
fleshed out characters of a small army of heroes, villains, and
hangers on. And this is where Paul Grist ultimately fumbles. He
doesn’t seem to know what story he wants to tell, so he tries to
get away with telling every story at once.
Characters and storylines are introduced only to vanish and
reappear, spontaneously, without so much as a nod to rhyme or reason.
There is no better example than the most recent issue. Jack
Staff #19 features the return of Sommerset Stone, introduced in
and otherwise unseen since this summer’s Giant Sized
Special. Or Tom Tom, The Robot Man, who makes a full half page
appearance to… I don’t know, remind you that he exists?
Where did he come from? And then he’s gone, as if Grist suddenly
had a jones on to drawing someone bending a steel girder, did so, and
was satisfied enough to entirely abandon the character. It’s not
just that pointless cameos like these divert readers' attention away
from the main story (which is what again?). It also means that newly
introduced figures, like the Head Master, aren’t taken seriously
by readers, who don’t trust that they’ll ever see the
character again, and thus don’t bother to invest anything in
them.
And there’s the fatal flaw of Jack Staff as a book.
With so much going on and so little attention seemingly paid to pacing
or plotting, it’s impossible for readers to become invested in
the book, and getting invested in an ongoing story, and in the
characters that make it, is what ultimately drives serialized fiction,
whether it’s Final Crisis or Days of Our Lives.
When I finish reading a comic, I expect to feel like I read a comic
– like I got a small story, or a chunk of a larger story.
Grist, meanwhile, consistently leaves me feeling like I only got
pieces of pieces of a several stories. This is frustrating on a
variety of levels – as someone who spends hard earned cash on my
books every week, I expect to feel like I got my money’s worth,
especially during trying economic times such as these.
—CCdC—
Cover image used without explicit permission in accordance with the "Fair Use" provision of US copyright law.
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