I'm always saying Frank Cho is one of my favorite artists, but I had never read Liberty Meadows, the comic strip that made him famous and got him several awards. I had his Shanna for Marvel, his Women book, and his collection of Liberty Meadows covers, but I hadn't read a single LM strip. Of course, that had to change, and that's why I went ahead and bought the first trade paperback collecting the series, Liberty Meadows: Eden. And I enjoyed it immensely.LM tells the story of a bunch of characters living at Liberty Meadows, an animal sanctuary. The two human characters are Brandy, the hot animal psychologist; and Frank, the goofy veterinarian that loves her but is too scared of asking her out. And the five animals are Ralph, a crazy midget bear that used to work in a circus; Leslie, a hypochondriac bullfrog; Dean, a chain-smoking pig obsessed with hitting on women; Truman, a tiny and naïve duck; and Oscar, a mute wiener dog.
Cho mixes realistic characters (the humans) with the cartoony animals, and the mix works beautifully and looks great. The strips are always humorous and sometimes touching, and I think Cho does an excellent job of making each strip independent while at the same time they all follow the same story and move it forward.
There are four paperbacks out so far (I love the cover of the fourth one), and if they all are like this one, I'm sure it's going to be a terrific series (which everyone says it is). As for the first volume, I absolutely recommend it!
4 comments:
It sounds like I'm buying it too. I've always admired the talent that goes behind stories on comic strips. Because of what you said. It seems very difficult to me to achieve that independent-strips-that-form-a-coherent-story quality.
I totally agree. I had never read a comic strip before (not on a regular basis), but reading Liberty Meadows I was constantly amazed at how each strip was self-contained and had a beginning, a middle, and an end; and how the following strip picked up where the previous one left it, recapping everything effortlessly and moving the story forward. I've never done it before, but it strikes me as tremendously difficult. I mean, many times he's telling the same thing or a summarizing something that came before, but he's doing it in such a competent way that you never feel cheated by either (a) having the feeling you've seen that before; and (b) thinking the story is becoming way too ambitious and complicated, and if you missed one week's strip, you're totally lost.
As a matter of fact, I bought volumes 2, 3 and 4 earlier today, so yeah: go ahead and get the first one, and let me know what you think :)
Well, now I've got no chance but buying it. The moment I read it, you're all knowing about it.
Excellent ;)
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