Against the American Dream
Most of the time I’m just fine with artists going from story to story without holding the hands of the reading audience. More often than not we can tell when the story changes so, you know, do your thing! However, sometimes comics like this happen, where the story bounces all over the place, and in those cases slowing things down a bit is not a bad idea. A lot of this is me guessing, but I’ll try to walk you through this. The comic is, overall, a collection of wrestlers and a wrestling manager talking trash about (the recently deceased) Dusty Rhodes. I know this because I recognize Jim Cornette, one of the more famous former wrestling managers. But I’ll bet that lots of other people don’t know that, and he’s not identified anywhere by name. There are also quotes from three other wrestlers, and my best guesses for those are “Superstar” Billy Graham, Mr. Fuji (manager, I think, but maybe he wrestled too?) and… some other guy. You could have a table of contents on one of the inside covers, or you could list who they are in the same panel, but it’s mean to not identify them anywhere, and bad storytelling. Other stories interspersed with these speeches include three explorers who try to go to Area 51 (but the story peters out before we learn what happened, if anything), a dreamy piece on wishing for a better life, and photos of Lake Street in Minneapolis. That last one baffled me, as it didn’t seem to have much of a point, but it’s also entirely possible that I just missed it. Overall this comic was kind of a mess, which is a shame, as a comic based on people trash talking Dusty Rhodes had all kinds of potential. Luckily Dusty Rhodes had famous feuds that lasted years, so there could always be other issues with this basic idea.
