The comic books that I love (and will keep on my bookshelves forever) are the ones where the text and artwork combine to make me feel something really strongly; it could be laugh out loud happiness or it could make me surreptitiously wipe my eyes whilst steadfastly denying that I’m about to start crying, either’s good :o) If a story doesn’t do this for me then it can be as entertaining as possible but there will still be that little something missing...
Morpheus’ revenge, on his captors, in ‘Sandman’ dropped a chill right into the pit of my stomach while the climactic scenes from the prison break (in ‘The Walking Dead’) completely blew my mind and left me unable to string a coherent sentence together for a couple of hours afterwards. That’s the kind of comic book action I’m after!
I’ve normally relied on ‘The Goon’ for a good dose of humour and slightly surreal gangland horror but there has always been hints of something slightly more serious going on under the surface; darker business that scarred the Goon both physically and emotionally. I finally got to pick up ‘Chinatown’ (the book that explains it all but never seems to be on the shelves when I go into Forbidden Planet) and found out just what happened. This book isn’t a hard hitter but still managed to leave me totally speechless by the end...
The Goon and Frankie are having trouble with a new guy in town; the mysterious Mr Wicker is taking over all the rackets and seems to be able to anticipate every move against him before it happens. If this wasn’t bad enough it also brings back some painful memories for Goon of his love for one particular woman, the heartbreaking revelations he had to deal with and the resulting confrontation in Chinatown...
Every ‘Goon’ book that I’ve read, so far, has had me laughing out loud and getting strange looks from commuters who wouldn’t dream of reading comic books at all; let alone ones where the main character has to shoot squid off his car and is constantly laying some hurt on a giant spider that owes him money. ‘Chinatown’ was different though. I got into it just as much as (if not more than) the other books but it’s not funny at all. It doesn’t try to be, this is serious stuff...
While the artwork is spot on (as far as I was concerned), the colouring made it difficult for me to follow the story in the way it was meant to be read. The events in Chinatown (Goon’s past) have a sepia colour to them which is very effective, once you realise it’s there, but only after you’ve managed to differentiate between that and the typically sober colours of Goon’s present. There’s not a lot of difference between the two and this was confusing although it also made me get into the book even more as I had to pay a lot of attention to what I was reading...
The artwork itself is as gorgeous as ever and is coupled with a brooding and intense plot that had me constantly trying to work out who Mr Wicker was as well as sharing the highs and lows of Goon’s life. Powell has the book nailed so well that sometimes he doesn’t need to use words at all, letting the pictures tell you everything you need to know. There’s a sequence where Goon has had some horribly bad news and spends the next few panels just staring at himself in the bathroom mirror. No words are spoken but the sequence is no less eloquent for this omission. You know exactly what’s going on in his head and you’re a stronger person than I am if you don’t find your heart strings being tugged just a little bit...
Amidst the bullets and beautiful women, you really get a feel for who Goon is as oppose to the man of mystery we’ve grown used to. I won’t look at him in the same way from now on... We also get a sense of how deep the friendship is between Goon and Frankie in a way that goes far beyond the Gang Boss/Underling dynamic we’ve seen before. These guys mean a lot to each other and it will take a lot for their friendship to be put to the test (the fact that their friendship is put to the test just shows how far Powell takes things here).
I’m a big fan of ‘The Goon’ (as you’ve probably guessed by now) so will admit to a little bias at the same time as saying that ‘Chinatown’ was well worth waiting for as well as more than worth the read. Here’s a book that will cast the rest of the series in a whole new light.
Ten out of Ten
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