In an old folks’ home in London, Katie is enjoying her twilight years. To the amused frustration of staff, she’s not content to sit down with a cuppa and dunk biscuits to Countdown. Katie likes to go walkabout.
She’s been a Wonder Woman fan since an encounter with the immortal heroine in the Second World War, when Katie was a reporter in France.
Not everyone at the St Charles Care Home for the Elderly is happy with Katie’s lust for life.
I loved this two-part DC Digital First tale, Ultimate Fangirl. Amy Chu’s script is smart, snappy and full of heart. Maria Laura Sanapo’s art is lovely as she works in two styles – contemporary and classic. The modern day sequences convincingly portray an older person with a massive twinkle in her eyes, which sit under refreshingly realistic eyebrows. The retro pages give us five-star battle action starring a Diana very close to the Amazon gal on the cover of 1942’s Wonder Woman #1, complete with white steed.
I don’t know if the Benday-dot style pattern evoking four-colour comics is the work of Sanapo or colourist Wendy Broome, but either way the latter deserves enormous credit. Broome’s generous use of browns bring to mind sepia photographs of old, while Diana is a blast of primary colours. I would love an entire graphic novel by Chu, Sanapo and Broome. Broome also does a fine job with the present day sequence.
The excellent Pat Brosseau uses the slightly wobbly fonts he favours for his work on DC’s digital books. It doesn’t look bad, but I much prefer the neater lettering style he uses in such main line DC books as this week’s Wonder Woman #770.
There’s only one problem with this issue, and it’s a familiar one…
Yep, yet again a comic supposedly created for digital buyers has a regular-shaped page split over two screens. It is infuriating, and insulting. A couple of weeks ago the final pages of Next Batman: Second Son had the final page reveal ruined by the same thing – the climactic caption may as well have read, ‘My GOD… FEET!
Maybe that’s it, perhaps the editors at DC are foot fetishists? Because it’s not a single editor’s doing, it’s happened across several fiefdoms.
Seriously, why is it happening? Are artists not being given the memo that they need to be drawing for tablet screens? If it’s been decided that the print versions of these chapters are to be prioritised, fine, just give us regular page shapes. But for crying out loud, let’s not wreck artists’ work, and the reader experience, with slapdash productions.
End of rant.
(Until next week, probably.)
That apart, I thoroughly recommend Ultimate Fangirl as a perfect piece of Wonder Woman entertainment. It’s a heartwarming, fun read, looks marvellous and pays tribute to Diana’s long history in comics. Also, it introduces us to the amazing Katie!
Too Dangerous For a Girl 2 