Reviewer: Chris Delloiacono
Story Title: Down to Earth
Written by: Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning
Art by: Kalman Andrasofszky
Lettered by: Rob Leigh
Editor: Tom Palmer Jr.
Special thanks to: Jef Waye
Publisher: DC Comics
I’m not even supposed to be here today!
I picked up the first issue of iCandy last month, and was under-whelmed by the sparse story. I don’t recall ever being so unfazed by a debut issue; I really didn’t care about what I read. It didn’t stink by any means, but it certainly didn’t light my world on fire either. Since things have been quite hectic in life lately, I had decided not to pick up another issue. Of course things do change rather quickly.
I’ve been really hard on debuting books lately. I’m already over forty regular titles a month, and I’m happy with just about every one. Since I’d prefer not to add too many more titles, the ones I try usually only have an issue or two to grab me. When the assignments for the week came around, I cursed myself for not sending the esteemed Dark Overlord my “new†reading list sooner than the day before. For the title I no longer planned on reading, was one of my books to review.
Shouldn’t there be Lightcycles?
Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning are truly talented writers; they alone have made me a regular reader of Legion, which follows a group of superheroes I’ve never been a big fan of. I really want to like iCandy, but while the concept is compelling, there doesn’t seem to be much to it. Essentially this is the film TRON reversed with the video game character in the “real†world.
I can be a real picky with my comics, so too much action irritates me, but talking heads are frustrating as well. After two issues of iCandy we’ve been introduced to Matt, the cookie cutter troubled kid, dealing with divorced parents, and a sister that disappeared two years ago. The only major occurrence has been the introduction of Candy, the video game character thrust into the real world, who appears to be Matt’s sister. The building blocks for the story to come are here, but largely undeveloped. Next issue appears to be where the villains will finally overtly make their presence known.
Video gaming gone wrong!
While Abnett and Lanning include more story, and a touch more characterization this month, the real star is Kalman Andrasofszky. He captures the feel of the video game genre to perfection. Candy, literally, looks like she jumped out of a video game. The look and muted color palette used for Candy, while reminiscent of TRON, breaks ground as well. Andrasofszky’s art is utterly brilliant in bringing the kinetic world of video gaming to life. All told this book is worth buying for the art alone.
As outlandish as it may sound, I’m going to give iCandy another month on my pull list, albeit on life support. I manage a video game store, and play my share of video games.
iCandy is by far the best synthesis of the look and feel of gaming into a comic book, that I’ve seen. It’s still not a particularly great comic, but it’s just quirky enough, and different from the rest of the pack, for me to give it a little more time.
