My review about this was going to be a lot more positive until looked up the Drawn and Quarterly page that I was linking to. They called him “easily the best new cartoonist to have emerged in the last half decade” and I just can’t think of any reason they would have to say that. Not to slight the guy, this is the only thing of his I’ve seen, but it says on the back of this issue that it’s his first full comic and I only bought this, at the very most, a year ago. His other story must have been 4 years ago, and come on people, that’s not very many comics to base that on. Anyway, lest it start sounding like I’m getting down on D & Q and Michael, I’ll stop there. I did like this book. A nice little nostalgic tale about a man raising a child and thinking about his childhood. The art reminds me of Seth, and he’s one of my favorites. I’d like to see his other story so I could see a little more of what the hype’s all about though. He’s good, but I’d say that he another few issues in him before he gets great, if he does get there. Isn’t it a better idea to let the man flourish on his own without hyping him up to the comics world as the next best thing? Where does he go from there if his next story isn’t as well received as his first two? It’s not like he has a lot to fall back on. Again, sorry about the rant, but I’m starting to see just a tiny bit that criticism can have an effect on people, negative or positive, and it’s still a slightly hard concept to grasp. Shouldn’t you just feel a need to do the work without being compelled to start or stop because of the opinion of somebody you’ve probably never even met? And, if anybody ever asks me to detail my position on critics on my page, I’ll link them right here. Click on the title and give it a shot. You can see if I’m incredibly stupid for wondering why people are so worked up over this.
