As a nerd with no prejudice, I enjoy comic books along with sci fi and fantasy books, video games, Bruce Campbell, and Vikings. While on the last raid of my local comic book shop, I came across the comic Northlanders written by Brian Wood. I had already read three of the DMZ graphic novels, which was also written by him and was hesitant to pick it up since I didn't like what he had written the first time (I even read three to see if it would change my mind as the story progressed...nope). But since it was about vikings and it had the tag line "Vikings done right" I thought I'd give it a shot.Alright, where should I begin? It was awful. The entire plot was DMZ placed in viking times, all characters in their same respective roles as the first (for the most part). At first I found it dull and uninteresting just like DMZ had been. The dialogue reminded me of the way douche-bag frat boys talk about their weekends. The characters were so cliche and dry, but it wasn't in a humorous or nostalgic way, it just felt like there was no originality to it. Plus the plot was completely predictable.
After reading it, I decided to do a little research about Brian Wood and his preparation for this comic. To be honest, I've never felt this kind of distaste for a comic book writer as I have for this man. I mean, if Hagar the Horrible does a better job of representing vikings than you do as a serious comic book writer, you've got to work on something. After a small amount of time I found out that he spent months and months RESEARCHING this stuff, with a laundry list of titles he claims he read and an interview where he states he went to Iceland to do more in depth study...
At this point my blood began to boil. This guy spent THAT much time researching this and still got it completely WRONG? What the hell?!? "Vikings done right" my ass! For the amount of research he claims to have done, his work is utter shit. He not only used modern phrases and vocabulary that would not have been used back then (I know the language is different but using the word 'girlfriend' for a mistress is not okay in my book) but his main character had way too much of a modern thought process than any hero I've ever read in Norse literature. The main character not only grew up in Scotland but lived in the Middle East for years before returning. However, he has no sense of religion and hates any part of it...which makes it tough to swallow since he lived in two very religious settings at a very religious time. His thought process for why he feels this way is also something you might hear from a high school student as well. You could not tell at all that he did any sort of research besides using wikipedia for name references.
See, I wouldn't minded if this was more parody of comics like Conan the Barbarian with its zany masculine ways, but it's not. In fact, if you can't take it seriously (which I couldn't) I figured I'd try to look at it as something I'd like for irony purposes. But I couldn't even do that! It had too much seriousness to be ironic but it was too incorrect to be serious! It awkwardly straddles the fence between the two leaving you uncomfortable and no sure whether to laugh or get angry.
Nevertheless, from his livejournal account this Brian Wood guy seems like a decent fellow in person. I think I'm more angry at the fact that gets so much praise for sub-par work. I'm glad people like Brian K. Vaughn and Alan Moore are still ranked above him. Their writing is much more brilliant than I have seen him to be able to accomplish.
No comments:
Post a Comment