Once again Adi Tantimedh and Hugo Petrus nail it in La Muse; I felt my own liberal guilt pangs kick in here, how easy it is to discuss suffering in far off lands as if we knew what we were talking about when the fact is, of course, most of us are damned lucky not to really know. That double-edged problem – we feel guilty if we don’t read about such events and discuss them but we feel somewhat complicit because we’re on the outside making judgements about something we’re not involved in. This is one of the reasons La Muse has been so bloody good a read – Adi and Hugo have taken an earnest, super-powered being trying to change the world but then also delivered on showing the consequences, both global and personal, for even such well-intentioned actions, not to mention pondering if any one person has the right to make those changes on behalf of the rest of the planet. And along the way they have gleefully kicked some bloated stereotypes from the superhero genre and re-worked them for their own purposes, touched perfectly on some media zeitgeist and even delivered sexuality in a mature (and fun) manner rather than the exploitative T&A titillation the medium is often accused of peddling. Class.
(frame from the latest page of La Muse; story by Adi Tantimedh, art by Hugo Petrus; you can check out the entire series free on Big Head Press’ website)
Wed, Feb 13, 2008
Comics and cartoons