{"id":39,"date":"2007-02-12T17:28:25","date_gmt":"2007-02-13T01:28:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/comics212.net\/2007\/02\/12\/review-casanova-2\/"},"modified":"2007-02-12T23:32:39","modified_gmt":"2007-02-13T07:32:39","slug":"review-casanova-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/comics212.net\/?p=39","title":{"rendered":"Review: Casanova #2"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"casanova2-500.jpg\"<\/a>Casanova #2<\/strong>
\nBy Matt Fraction and Gabriel<\/strong> Ba<\/span><\/strong>
\n$1.99, 16+ pages, Two<\/strong> Colours<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Reviewed by Christopher Butcher<\/em><\/p>\n

PREVIOUSLY IN CASANOVA<\/strong>
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 We met Casanova Quinn in the act of stealing the<\/strong> Seychelle<\/span> Ruby, which turned out to be Ruby Seychelle\u00e2\u20ac\u201da beautiful robot concubine to criminal data mogul Sabine Seychelle. From there, Cass\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 night goes very badly.<\/strong>
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Something\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s happened to E.M.P.I.R.E.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s star agent and Casanova\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s twin sister Zephyr\u00e2\u20ac\u201dnamely, she died. Cass and his father fight at her funeral. Afterwards Cass has a cracked jaw and a mysterious doohickey in his pocket. The mysterious doohickey\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 OF DESTINY!<\/strong>
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 We won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t blow it for you, but by the time the smoke cleared, Cass had been abducted into another timeline by Newman Xeno, his father\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s arch-rival and the ruler of W.A.S.T.E., an ambiguously-named Pynchon reference that exists to make Cornelius Quinn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s life miserable. Here in Timeline 919, it was Casanova<\/em> that was E.M.P.I.R.E.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s star agent, and Zephyr that was into all the sketchy shit\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand nothing is sketchier or shittier than Newman Xeno, who is totally her boyfriend.<\/strong>
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 And now, with both the Quinn kids in his pocket, Newman Xeno has sent Casanova to integrate himself back into the awaiting arms of E.M.P.I.R.E.\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/strong>\u00c2\u00a0
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 – <\/strong>From the inside front cover of Casanova #2, <\/em>by Matt Fraction.<\/p>\n

Casanova #2 <\/em>is a second first-issue of sorts\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 With #2 the series adopts its standard format of 16 pages, its fully 5 pages of notes and back-up material, and introduces the character\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s new status quo: totally fucked. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the problem with being a triple-agent, there are rarely easy assignments.<\/p>\n

The theme for this issue? Loosely \u00e2\u20ac\u0153fathers and sons,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d but more accurately \u00e2\u20ac\u0153creators and creations.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Speaking of the wall of sound technique that author Matt Fraction described last issue, this issue positively resonates with the familial interactions, layered on top of and often bumping into one another. E.M.P.I.R.E. (which is a pain in the ass to type, by the way) inserted double-agent Winston Heath into a hot zone, created a whole new personality and life for him. E.M.P.I.R.E.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s director is sending his son in to retrieve the agent. The bad guys want him killed. And the double agent? Why, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been writing a comic book version of his life and just wrote his own death scene at the hands of\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 well, you can figure it out. This issue really digs into its themes\u00c2\u00a0by setting Cass as a sort of ultimate teenager; rebellious, horny, buzzing with energy and testing his boundaries. Casanova either attempts or succeeds to rebel against literally every father\/creator-figure in this book, this issue, to various (and shocking!) effects. The end of the issue features three great \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Fuck you, Dad!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d moments that really hammer the point home. He better watch out or he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s gonna get grounded\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

\"CassanovaSpeaking of hot zones, the area is very hot<\/em> indeed; the setting for the issue is a tropical city that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s powered by massive amounts of sex energy flowing through the air. A non-stop orgy fueled by Mother Earth\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s own orgone, and facilitated by an army of buxom sex robots. Sex in comics is always\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 interesting. If it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fun and enjoyable sex, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s labeled porn. If it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s dirty, ugly, awkward sex, then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s probably a Dan Clowes comic (no offence to Mr. Clowes of course; his sweaty, uncomfortable sex scenes are always wonderful to read). There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s very little sexy<\/em> middle ground in comics, characters polarized firmly to virgin <\/strong>or whore<\/strong>. I can appreciate the way that superhero writers like Gail Simone get behind and defend the characters they write as sexy without being\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 well, slutty I guess, but when the dude actually drawing<\/em> your book is simultaneously showing your character\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s tits AND ass, that kind of flies right out the window. And Lost Girls<\/em> by Moore and Gebbie as a work exists to celebrate sexual diversity, but it all feels strangely clinical and un-scintillating to me. Luckily, Matt Fraction addresses that issue head on. Sure, all of the female characters in the first two issues have been either sex objects (sometimes literally, as in the case of the many sex robots\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6), or his creepy sister, but this issue? Two naked dudes fight for four pages while the sex robots are liberated and rebel against their depraved master! Hott! Seriously, cocks-a-flappin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122, muscles tensed, men flying through the air all the while debating the central theme of the issue\u00e2\u20ac\u201dcreator versus creation\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand the whole thing ends in a great big violent metaphorical cum-shot! It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a first in my comics reading.<\/p>\n

Gabriel Ba is ideally suited to this book, by the way. His work has a sort of organic angularity that lets characters go from fashion-illustration lovely to comically (or terrifyingly) grotesque in a panel\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time, and still look consistent and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153on model\u00e2\u20ac\u009d throughout. He knows when to use shadows, when to reduce or add detail, and how to design pretty-much anything, apparently. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s kind of amazing, actually, how thoroughly realised the world of Casanova<\/em> is (and he does it all on a book that averages 7 panels a page!). I bring this up because in the back-matter of this issue, we see little snippets, panels and illustrations, from the comic that double-agent Heath had been creating. After 16 pages of Ba\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s carefully chosen lines and details, the feathery pencil realism of the super-spy-comic-within-a-super-spy-comic is jarring as hell. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a bit like Phil Jimenez taking over for Mike Mignola half way through an issue of Hellboy<\/em>. While the other art isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t \u00e2\u20ac\u0153bad\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and might even be more palettable to a wider spectrum of the comic book buying audience (\u00e2\u20ac\u0153superhero fans\u00e2\u20ac\u009d), instead we get a style that gives the book a unique visual description, a look unlike anything on the stands. While I may reference author Matt Fraction more frequently in these reviews, I want to state for the record that Ba\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s art is absolutely essential to the success of this book, and I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t actually think of another artist who could tackle this.<\/p>\n

Speaking of the back-matter of the book; this issue sees Matt Fraction provide five full pages of notes and background on the issue. Part of the appeal of the format, part of it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s manifesto<\/em> if you will, is to create a solid read. Something that feels like it was a good chunk of story with a beginning, middle, and end, and worth much more than the $2 you paid for it. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a bit like, say, an episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer<\/em>. One of the good ones from the middle there. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s only 40 minutes long, yeah, but instead of the 20 minutes of commercials you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re normally stuck with, at the end Joss Whedon comes on screen and talks to you about the episode and, you know, how things are going. You\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d like that, wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t you?<\/p>\n

This issue\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s back-matter also seriously digs into the process of writing a comic book, specifically Fraction\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s and specifically this issue. Honestly, if you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re an aspiring comics creator you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll probably get more out of this than looking at someone\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s scripts or reading a hundred Newsarama interviews. THIS ISSUE: FRACTION ACTUALLY TELLS YOU WHERE HE GETS HIS IDEAS FROM. The unanswerable question answered in 5 pages. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s kind of shocking.<\/p>\n

Er, I guess we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re at the end now. I enjoyed this issue quite a bit, but then I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve enjoyed them all so as a series of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153reviews\u00e2\u20ac\u009d this probably doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t work at all, actually. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve just given it away: It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all good, go buy it! Sorry. Still, 4.5 Days of Casanova <\/strong>continues soon.<\/p>\n

– Christopher<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Casanova #2 By Matt Fraction and Gabriel Ba $1.99, 16+ pages, Two Colours Reviewed by Christopher Butcher PREVIOUSLY IN CASANOVA \u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 We met Casanova Quinn in the act of stealing the Seychelle Ruby, which turned out to be Ruby Seychelle\u00e2\u20ac\u201da beautiful robot concubine to criminal data mogul Sabine Seychelle. From there, Cass\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 night goes very … <\/p>\n

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