2009 April 23 | Johnny Saturn

Archive for ‘April 23rd, 2009’

3 results.

A Thoughtful Review…

by Scott Story on April 23, 2009 at 12:03 am

Hi, Folks:

Over at Choice Comics.net, EEN (real name not known) wrote a well considered and detailed review of Johnny Saturn. His honesty and insightfulness are greatly appreciated! He gave us four out of five stars.

I would like to note, however, that I’m not the only creator on the comic. Benita helps develop characters and plots, writes about half the scenes, writes all the dialogue, letters everything, and edits the whole series. She is an integral part of our little production team.

Johnny Saturn is a hard comic for me to review because I have mixed feelings. There are a lot of good things to be said about JS. Sometimes it feels like Frank Miller and Grant Morrison are writing this comic instead of Scott Story….other times it reminds of why I stopped reading image comics.

In the end it is comic written by a fan of the genre for fans of the genre. This isn’t a universe where heroes have traded in the capes of leather jackets, but it is one where heroes strap their logo onto Kevlar rather than spandex. A series that isn’t afraid to give you want to expect in a super hero or deconstruct the genre depending on where the story goes. And it has an infectious energy that draw you into the world even when something makes you roll your eyes.

On Writing:
Scott’s Story lines originally where very hit or miss with me but they’ve gotten much better over time. If you’re willing to enjoy a bit of comic book logic the recent storylines have been very solid and enjoyable, more over the comic has gone from a simple noir action romp to actually having surprising emotional depth. Early on a lot of the paranormal elements really felt out of place ruining the feel of the gritty universe and snapping your suspension of disbelief like a twig but Scott backed off them for a bit and as they’ve started to creep back into the comic they now feel right at home.

Scott is a good writer of morally grey characters and the further the comics goes the more depth it starts to bring to those characters. Some obvious straw-men stand-ins for other staple superheroes have really grown from total tools in the early chapters to well rounded relatable characters with depth, motivations, virtues and flaws. The major flaw with the comic now is that the villains have not grown with the series. The grey moral haze and complexities of the heroes only makes the black hearted villains and their often nihilistic or Orwellian plans progressively more the comics critical weak point. The comic’s villains are all Red Skulls and Mephistopheles when what the comic needs is a good Doctor Doom or Magneto.

On Art:
Scott’s are style is fairly unique and a good fit for the universe. It strikes me as a cross between the Batman: Animated series style and the 90′s image style popularized by McFarlane and his like.

The colors used in the character designs would be my only complaint, but the style itself is very enjoyable and most of the characters are very visually interesting if sometimes a bit over the top, but in a super hero universe sometimes that is just what you need.

Overall:

In summery if you enjoyed things like Allen Moore’s run on Supreme in all its love letter to the genre flavor then you’ll enjoy Johnny Saturn. Johnny Saturn in listed a B class hero in the universe and maybe Johnny Saturn is B super hero comic sometimes, but it gets it right more often than not and even when it lack polish and refinement it always tries its hardest and gives a lot more than most of the main stream titles.

Read and Enjoy.

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J. Gray of Mysteries of the Arcana Reviews Johnny Saturn

by Scott Story on April 23, 2009 at 6:16 am

Hi, Folks:

This review can be found on J.’s blog over at Mysteries of the Arcana, a supernatural dimension hopping tale that has quickly become one of my favorite comics. I love this type of story, so I endorse it wholeheartedly.

Johnny Saturn

By JGray

My love for superhero comics goes backa ways. In fact, “Crisis on Infinite Earths”, the twelve partmasterpiece by Marv Wolfman and George Perez was my introduction tothe concept of multiple universes; something heavily explored here onMysteries of the Arcana.

In the last several years, though, thebig publishers have done a lot to tick me off. I won’t go into mylaundry list because I could rant for hours. Instead, I’m just goingto be thankful that Scott and Benita Story came along and took up thechallenge of creating new heroes as the centerpiece of theirwebcomic, Johnny Saturn.

The series starts off with the death ofthe title character. Johnny Saturn has been fighting the good fightfor over a decade, using only his fists, his wits, and the sort ofbody armor you can order from the back of Soldier of Fortune. Fromthere, things get really exciting. The archive is worth spending timewith. Better yet, order the print version so you can lovingly thumbthrough it.

I won’t give away the plot. Instead,I’ll explain some of the things I love about Johnny Saturn.

Thing #1

My favorite scene involves JohnnySaturn battling a group of powered villains. We get to see what he’sthinking as he fights. The mental narration is terse, almost like achecklist. Speedster? Telegraph your moves so you know where they’llhit, then hit them. Problem neutralized. I love it, because in myopinion characters like Johnny Saturn (and Batman and other mysterymen) aren’t amazing because of their fighting skills or detectiveabilities but because of their sheer tactical genius.

Thing #2

There’s a phenomenon in comics known as“Women in Refridgerators”. Female characters are often raped,beaten, murdered, depowered, and stereotyped as bitches or sluts. Insome cases it seems like the writer has some sort of axe to grindwith women, in others ancillary female characters are used as plotdevices to promote the “growth” of male characters. Thephenomenon was named after a heroes girlfriend was murdered andstuffed in his fridge. The hero then tracked down her killer and, atthe last minute, decided to deliver the villain to justice ratherthan go the old eye for an eye route. Thus, the hero grew, proving hewas just and noble and all it took was the brutal murder of a woman.

Johnny Saturn isn’t like that. Thefemale characters are interesting. The costumes can be a bitrevealing, yes, but the women have character. They aren’t twodimensional. They aren’t there to make the men look good, and theyaren’t there to satisfy the writer’s craving for revenge on all thegirls who rejected him in high school. In fact, the most powerful and(in my opinion) most intelligent superhero in the Johnny Saturnuniverse is a woman named Staff of Life. I can’t wait to see more ofher in action.

Thing #3

There’s a whole lot to explore. Thecomic’s well written and focuses primarily on Johnny Saturn but theother heroes are just as interesting. The world, too, holds a lot ofpromise and begs to be explored. Truth be told, the setting deservesmore than just one comic. If I could get an artist and permissionfrom Scott and Benita I think I’d jump at a chance to crack open asecondary story there.

Let me be clear. This isn’t a goldenage or silver age comic. There’s plenty of blood and violence andJohnny Saturn’s body bears the realistic consequences of a decade offighting crime. However, it also isn’t a Frank Miller-esque, over thetop splattercomic either. Instead, Scott and Benita have found a wayto balance the need for realism that marked comics in the 80s/90s andcombined it with the need for escapism that marked comics in the50s/60s.

Go read Johnny Saturn. You won’t besorry.

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Inside The Book No. 32

by Scott Story on April 23, 2009 at 8:09 am

Here we have the first and only design for Doc, and I feel like I nailed it the first time through. This is rare, really, but Doc came to me as a fully-formed character. As a leader among the Mole People, his background is more fleshed out than most of his brethren, and he was a surgical nurse before he fell through the cracks in society.