Chadwick, Paul – Complete Concrete

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Complete Concrete

And to think that I was talking shit about this book not being as polished as his later works. It’s not, I guess, but that doesn’t take away any of its charm. This is the original ten issue series from Dark Horse all in one volume, and it’s big. It tells the tale of Concrete scaling Mount Everest, attempting to cross the Atlantic Ocean, helping a troubled farm out, freeing some trapped miners, being the bodyguard for a rock star, and telling his origin story to Larry. If these all seem like fantastic adventures, they really don’t feel that way in the book. That’s the beauty of this work. The main character is so down to earth that nothing fantastic that he ever does seems like something that the average person wouldn’t try, if given the same opportunity. I did mention at some point that he’s not a superhero of any kind, right?

The best parts of this book are the quiet parts. Concrete eyeing Larry when he meets his (unknowing) love interest, or his fear of scaring little children, or even the exact moment when he knows that he has jumped too far while avoiding the cops and he sighs before falling into a swimming pool. It’s the little things that make characters human, and these little things are done to perfection. I said before that this might not be the best starting point for this series because the writing and the art both get so much better in the later series. That’s true, but this is a good starting point. It may get a lot better, but this stuff is pretty damned good in its own right. And this way you get to see his evolution as a being who is trapped in a giant concrete shell, instead of picking it up at a later point and trying to figure out what’s going on. This isn’t the best book I’ve ever seen at dealing with interpersonal relationships, Love and Rockets takes the cake for that. But this series is one that I look forward to coming out more than most, and the lack of anything new for the last couple of years has been tough. This is quite possibly the best “ordinary man in extraordinary circumstances” story ever done in any genre, and that’s saying a lot when you look at all the movies I’ve watched and all the books I’ve read. If there are people out there who hate this book, please, let me know. I want to hear any possible argument against this series as being (all around) one of the best comics series ever.