Love and Capes #5
Posted by: Hal Johnson on August 21, 2007 at 11:28 pm
Love and Capes is either the driest parody in the world of comics, or it totally sucks. For the life of me, I can’t tell which. It’s billed as “the heroically super situation comedy comic book, and this is no lie: Love and Capes perfectly mimics the banality and triteness of your standard situation comedy, with superheroes thrown in. The invariable basic plot follows Crusader/Mark’s struggles to get some time away from saving the earth to spend with steady girlfriend Abby. It’s not easy: when Mark is running late, Abby asks him, on the phone, “You don’t think you’ll be able to get free in time?” “Believe me, I’m trying,” Mark replies, and only then do we see that he speaking on a cell phone while caught in the grip of an enormous Creatures on the Loose-style stone monster. The joke is pretty bland, but it is also brilliant in the way it so perfectly recreates the kind of joke a sitcom might employ. Can’t you just picture Tony Danza (say) quipping into the telephone, “I’m a little tied up right now,” and then the camera pans back to reveal that the child he is babysitting has, in fact, bound him hand and foot with a clothesline? In issue #5, Abby has to spend time with Mark’s parents. Yipes! Mark had to brave a Christmas with Abby’s folks in issue two–is this repetition a wink at sitcom’s endless recycling of the same tired plots, or is it just a lack of imagination? This is the basic conundrum the comic presents. Is it possible to love sitcoms so much that one strives to recreate them in comic form? Is it possible to hate sitcoms so much that one devotes issue after issue to savaging them? Are jokes about the IRS, playing bridge, and how old the magazines are in the doctor’s waiting room a dry send-up of lame sitcom humor–or are they actual bad jokes? Mark: Look, Abby, I’m sorry I was five minutes late– This dialog is pitch perfect, but it’s not pitch perfect to reality. You can practically hear the laugh track; the captions (”Later”) replace stock footage of the Tanner house and two bars of the theme as a bridge between scenes. If this is an ironist’s savaging of sitcoms, it couldn’t be done better. If it’s just a sitcom, well, then, it’s just a sitcom. Heat up your TV dinner and get ready to laugh etc. 
Categories/Tags: Comic Reviews, Reviews,
6 Responses to "Love and Capes #5"1 | jesse jackson Wow, I can’t disagee more. I’ve read all 5 issues and I’ve enjoyed them all. I think the series has a nice new twist on a relationship between a superhero and his girlfriend. 2 | Jon Haehnle Hal, I think your over-analysis is hurting your enjoyment of this book. Personally I think Love and Capes is very well done and fun 3 | frekldthunder For myself, I consider Love and Capes to be more charming and sweet than funny – but you know what, there’s a place for that sort of thing in entertainment. It’s a light-hearted comedy that isn’t trying to be something it’s not. Not all comedy needs to be edgy satire. You don’t read Love and Capes for gut-busting humor. You read it for likeable characters who are not cardboard cutouts, living moments that most of us can relate to. Which is pretty much the point – even the guy with super strength who can fly has to deal with the consequences of missing his personal commitments. I’m a big fan of Spider-Man. In odd moments when I’m dwelling on the character and letting my mind wander into whimsy I’ve thought to myself, aside from the glimpses into Peter’s relationship with Aunt May that we get to see (usually in some way relating to a superhero crisis-of-the-moment), what about the moments that we don’t see? What’s it like when Peter drops over her house to mow her lawn for her, or fix the cable box that’s on the fritz, or just stop by to have tea with her and ask her how her week went. The focus being on May for a change, and not Peter exclusively. Stuff like that is too inconsequential in the context of a typical superhero comic, but it’s a question that Love and Capes tries to answer. 4 | Halifax I think your over-analysis is hurting your enjoyment of this book. Well, that’s pretty much my raison d’etre. I hope to reach a point where I can analyze everything and enjoy nothing. I like the idea of a Spidey/Aunt May comic–a friend of mine once proposed releasing a version of Silver Age Spider-man with every panel with someone in costume excised, theorizing that it would still work as a soap-opera comic–but I would prefer the Peter/May relationship not to follow the rhythms of a Full House episode. L&C is very successful at achieveing a particular esthetic, and I cannot begrudge people who like that esthetic their enjoyment of the series. Doesn’t work for me, though. Unless it does. I mean, I can’t tell with this book. 5 | David Petina Hal, I agree with Jesse, I find the book has a nice twist. But, I also find it interesting that you are criticizing Love & Capes for living up to it’s billing. As you note it is billed as “the heroically super situation comedy comic book.” So, how can you dislike it when the author gets that pitch perfect? I guess comes down to a simple dichotomy: those who sometimes enjoy light entertainment will most likely enjoy Love & Capes; those who don’t, won’t. 6 | Hal Johnson This is an interesting point–can a book be bad if it achieves what it’s aiming for? My gut response is yes, if what it is aiming for is bad. For example, I can only assume that Rob Liefeld draws exactly the way he wants to, while I have it on good authority that Chris Ware constantly disappoints himself with his art. Does the fact that Liefeld succeeds at clearing the incredibly low bar he has set for himself while a more ambitious artist fails indicate advantage Liefeld? Although, to be fair, a book that sets its bar at zero, such as Evan Dorkin’s Fight Man, can be a lot of fun. You’d look pretty silly complaining that Fight Man wasn’t, you know, deep enough. It’s unpretentious and ridiculous, and who can complain? But sitcoms created Small Wonder, and I will never forgive them for that. |
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