Over the weekend, my erstwhile other half in the reviewing game, Laura Hudson, decided it’d be a grand idea to review a comic every hour for 24 hours (you can view the fruits of her labors here). She started strong, but exhaustion seemed to overtake her by the end. As I promised her in her comments section, I will be reviewing her reviews, all in one shot. This is a far simpler task; however, I can’t help but chart her creeping madness as exhaustion sets in and her reviews become less and less coherent, and then come around again to become this beautiful litany on all things language, whether written or drawn (each header is a link to the review in question).

Let us begin.

10:00 AM: New Avengers #32

This is probably one of her best reviews of the “Awake State” lot (as you will see, her reviews during this period can be separated into “Awake State” and “Dream State,” the “dream” of course, being one of sleep). As this is her first review, she’s still cogent, lucid, and actually quite peppy. Her analysis of Bendis’ often overused “motormouth syndrome,” especially as it pertains to its creation of out-of-character moments, is spot on. Nonetheless, her love of all things Bendis still shines through like a spotlight in the dark, dark night.

The review ends with her relating the fact that she requires a USB cable for her recently purchased scanner, thereby granting her readers a small glimpse into her personal life.

11:00 AM: Thor #1

She opens with a comparison between Thor #1 and The West Wing which already spells trouble. The West Wing was a leftist’s dream come to life on television; a counterpoint to real life political dominance by the right. It was sometimes intelligently written, sometimes not, populated by a cast of characters who were at times enjoyable, infuriating, funny, hateful, and insightful. In short, a fairly good television show with moments of brilliance and moments of naïveté. Thor #1 was just bad. Drawing comparisons between the two is like drawing comparisons between Roland Barthes and Lupe Fiasco. One could do so, but what would be the point? The reference to the James Taylor song “Fire and Rain” after her ill-advised foray into television is quite humorous, and rather apropos.

The review once again ends with a window into her life, as she decries Radio Shack’s pricing policies. Perhaps Ms. Hudson would like to write an essay on how she thinks the free market should operate.

12:00 PM: New Avengers/Transformers #1

Ms. Hudson opens with an admission of the inherent ridiculousness of an inter-company crossover. She makes reference to childhood games in which myriad action figure from multiple children’s works of fiction all co-exist in the same space/time, that same space/time that exists only in a child’s mind. Perhaps that is where it should stay. The adult human cannot view a child’s fantasy without a filter of some kind. That is why inter-company crossovers are inherently ridiculous. We are no longer children, and therefore cannot create a child’s fantasy.

Even though she has all but classified all of the problems in this book as inherent to this particular breed of story, she can nonetheless find fault with it. Her admission that “the notion requires you to suspend your disbelief a whole order of magnitude more” does not preclude her from pointing out the laziness of the writer. An “Agression Wave” indeed.

As is becoming habitual, the review ends with an anecdote of her recent viewing of the Transformers film. Once again, she makes an allusion to the time/space existing in a child’s mind, and uses it as an apology for the film. In essence, she says the film would be great if we were all twelve-year-olds, and therefore should not judge it as adults.

1:00 PM: All-Star Superman #8

While I disagree with the final outcome of her analysis, I cannot fault Ms. Hudson’s analysis itself. She likens Superman’s experience on Bizarro World to a reader’s experience reading this particular issue. Superman has to not only figure out how to understand Bizarro-speak when it is spoken to him, he also has to learn how to speak it so as to make the Bizarros understand him. The reader has only to master the first step, but Ms. Hudson believes this to be a difficult and arduous task, one that makes enjoyment of the book near impossible. She furthers the allegory by making Zibarro, “the sole intelligent being” on this planet, as she puts it (though that is debatable, as the character of Le-Roj seems plenty intelligent, albeit in a predictably backwards fashion), a stand-in for the readers. Zibarro is the only person on Bizarro World who speaks correctly, and is therefore the only person the readers can relate to. I believe this to be an immediate entry way into the story, thereby making it enjoyable, but Ms. Hudson believes the opposite. She believes since Zibarro is walled off from normal Bizarro society, the reader is walled off from enjoying the book. Again, I cannot fault her analysis.

At first, it seems Ms. Hudson breaks with tradition and offers no insight into her life at the end of the review, but this is not true. It’s merely smaller and hidden, but there nonetheless.

2:00 PM: Fables #63

This review is the apogee of her “awake state.” As Fables is a series featuring the characters of many fairy tales from around the world (though most of them are European in origin so far, with a few Arabian characters, and a promise of Far East fairy tales to come), it makes sense to compare it to fairy tale devices and conceits. “Everything has a cost, and nothing is bought without bargaining something away.” That, ladies and gentlemen, is exactly what fairy tales are about. She even ties in this wisdom to her personal reading experience of Fables, in which she says that enjoyment of this series did not come until the fourth collection; the cost of enjoying the series was slogging through the introductory material.

This review is almost perfect.

3:00 PM: Black Summer #0

This review had the potential to be better than the Fables review, with smart comparisons between the politically-charged fictitious story and the politically-charged reality in which we live in while at the same time remarking on the inherent differences. Unfortunately, Ms. Hudson felt a need to interject her personal politics at various instances, devolving this from a fantastic review to a merely okay review. Regardless of her personal politics (or perhaps because of them), she manages to ask insightful questions that resonate both in the comic book and reality: “Is that evil? Is he a criminal? What should be done about it?” Now, that is probably more a product of the work in question than of Ms. Hudson herself (i.e. the book asked these questions and she merely gave them form), but she asks them nonetheless, and as far as I know, no other reviewer has.

She says Warren Ellis is a cantankerous man (in this review’s installment of “Laura Hudson’s Life”); I posit he is merely British, and the British seem to have only two speeds: charming and cantankerous. Ellis’ switch is broken and is permanently stuck on one speed.

4:00 PM: Immortal Iron Fist #6

We now enter the shadowy realm between Ms. Hudson’s two states in which actual reviews are shuffled away in favor of anecdotes and advice; she is still lucid, but the fatigue is beginning to show (though it seems somewhat early for that, remember that she has spent six or so hours reading tiny script alternately on glossy paper and on a bright computer screen; this taxes the mind something fierce).

There is no real review here except for the minimalist, yet positive, “You’re reading this, right?” Oh, certainly she mentions how great she finds the Heroes for Hire dialogue and the climax of the issue, but the lion’s share of the “review” is given to Ms. Hudson’s penchant for drinking games. While the gratification of such endeavours is dubious at best, I must admit she makes them sound like fun.

5:00 PM: Re-Gifters GN

Again, the only real review here is the non-committal “It’s not half bad.” The rest of the post is given over to Ms. Hudson’s version of Teen Beat magazine’s relationship advice column, with such universal truths as “Crushes are a messy business,” and “A lot of people are jerks, and usually they are not helpful enough to announce that up front.” Somehow, she manages to mention the book and compare scenes within it to her advice. Nonetheless, no real review is given here, and the post is entirely “Laura Hudson’s Life.”

When called on this fact in the comments section by yours truly, she mounts a feeble, yet convincing defense: she does have to do this for about sixteen more hours.

6:00 PM: She-Hulk #19

Once again, there is no review here. Ms. Hudson likes the book, she likes Dan Slott, and she looks forward to Peter David, but the post is mostly about how reading comics is not just a hobby to some people, but, as a commenter put it, “a way of life.” This tangent spins out from the use of Marvel comics as legal evidence within the Marvel Universe itself. A meta-textual device, to be certain, but one used with great comedic effect in the run. Although there is something inherently creepy about it, as well. Imagine every moment of one’s life, public and private, committed to paper and computer memory, easily accessible by any other person in the world to keep one honest (as She-Hulk’s sexual relationship with the Juggernaut is in proved in court in this issue). It’s a 1984 in which anybody can be Big Brother at any given time.

I wonder why Ms. Hudson makes no mention of our disagreement on She-Hulk? Perhaps it is because I’m proven wholly correct and she does not want to dwell on her past mistakes?

7:00 PM: Deadpool/GLI Summer Fun Spectacular

Ms. Hudson opens with “I’m gonna skimp on this review,” as if she hadn’t on the previous three. Nonetheless, she writes more about this book in this review than she had in the previous three posts combined. She lists six things that make this book great and then asks “are [we] sold yet?” Our answer is unimportant, as she must stock up on her required sustenance. I can only hope that this sustenance marks the return of an actual review.

8:00 PM: Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane #20

Red Bull must actually work, as Ms. Hudson writes an actual review here. She begins by making three acknowledgements: 1) Men tend not to purchase things that are branded for women, 2) I was the first to recommend this book to her, and 3) I am a man. It is difficult for me to admit this, but the most important of her three acknowledgements is the first, and if you permit me an aside, I’ll tell you why.

Branding products for a single sex (excepting products that are usable only by one gender because of biological reasons) is a fool’s errand, especially when it comes to consumable media. Is not the point in a capitalist society to sell your product to as many people as possible? I believe the corporate buzzword is “crossover appeal.” Branding Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane (or DC’s entire Minx line) as “girls-only” is saying men cannot read this product. Branding products can change societal notions of what is acceptable and not acceptable if the branding is strong enough. In the “society” that is comic book readers, which is rapidly growing but still relatively small, branding can change societal notions instantaneously, thereby making a male reading a “girls only” book the larger societal equivalent of a BDSM practitioner (this is not a value judgment on BDSM, but a frank observation of its place in society; what I’m saying is please do not flame me). Admittedly, the comic reading society is male-heavy, so branding a comic as “girls only” is usually just a way of attracting new readers, and thereby rendering my capitalist argument moot. Okay, aside over. Thank you for indulging me.

Her review continues with by once again comparing the story in the work and real life (a favorite device of hers, it seems), positing the question of whether or not the story is realistic in its portrayal of high schoolers dating as many people as possible within their circle of friends. She is correct in pointing out that this is a favorite gimmick of fan-fiction writers the world over, and succeeds further by not making her views on fan-fiction overt.

“Laura Hudson’s Life” continues with high school anecdotes about how she is connected to the comedian Carrot Top and why one should never draw up a “hook-up chart” (this might in fact be same anecdote).

9:00 PM: Invincible #43

Ms. Hudson, after a side trip in reviewing the series as a whole, does an admirable job of reviwing this issue. She calls it “the kind of issue that lesser books would skip over entirely, or else execute mechanically.” The various characters populating the universe of Invincible are allowed an issue to breathe and reflect on the events that have occured in preceeding issues. What Ms. Hudson most likely means by “lesser books” are the super-hero books published by the two biggest publishing houses, Marvel and DC. Since Robert Kirkman is the creator of this book, and can do whatever he wants on it without editorial meddling, these kinds of stories can flow organically from a previous event instead of immediately jumping to the next event.

And unless my eyes deceive me, “Laura Hudson’s Life” is entirely absent from this entry. I feel almost robbed.

10:00 PM: Cromartie High School v1

“And so we reach the halfway mark… God.”

This is Ms. Hudson’s one and only foray into international comics, and so she is almost forced to mention the inherent otherness of the book and how it means this book is still good even though it’s not, but she might be right and proper in doing so in this case.

Usually, when one reviews an international work (whether it is an American reviewing a Japanese work, or an Arab reviewing an English work, or a Korean reviewing a Chilean work, or any other combination you can think of), if one is not fully versed in the culture that the work comes from, a reviewer usually brings that up and then uses it as an apology explaning why the work is actually better than it is. That kind of review is cheap and lazy, and is a real disservice to the reader. If an international work does not make sense to the culture one is reviewing for, then that needs to be front and center. A work that cannot be understood because it is so steeped in cultural minutia is therefore a bad work. Should the the rest of the world be catering to American sensibilities? No, just like American should not cater to the other sensiblities, but one can tell a story that is internationally accessible. If it is not, then one;s own culture may enjoy the work, but other cultures most likely will not. And a reviewer should not use the fact of its otherness detract from giving it a bad review if it deserves one. Unless the work in question is a comedy.

Comedies cannot help but be steeped in cultural minutia. That is how comedy works, in most cases. One finds something that one has in common with others, and then makes light of it with clever wordplay or the like. It goes without saying that there are many things that different cultures have in common, but you can’t sustain a long-running comedy with just what the entire world has in common, and even an excellent writer cannot explain them all (one would lose the comedy). And that brings us back to Cromartie High School and Ms. Hudson’s assertation that even though it is not funny to her, it is still quite possible that this is the funniest book in the world simply because there are some things that are just too Japanese for her to understand (in the interest of full disclosure, it behooves me to mention that Ms. Hudson lived in Japan for some time, which means there really might be some things that are too Japanese).

At the end of this review, Ms. Hudson lets us know that her plans have slightly changed. Perhaps the Red Bull is running out.

11:00 PM: Criminal #7

“Dream State” is beginning to take hold, as Ms. Hudson’s reviews make a turn and start sounding like inebriated love letters, although not wholly without coherent and rational thought (that comes later).

This review is little more than a hosana to the combined talents of Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips. She begins by saying, “You’re so good you make it hard to realize, sometimes, how good you are,” and then follows with, “This is what Brubaker does best, and I could watch him do it forever.” Not a lot of hard analysis there, but at least she tells you what she thinks of the book. The best line comes at the end, though: “Reading Criminal doesn’t feel like being told a story–it’s more like watching something happen, something ugly and exciting, something inexorable and real, right in front of you.” This is a very short review (though not her shortest), but it manages to say a lot. It also manages to equate the book with reality without making an actual comparison, thereby elevating Ms. Hudson’s analytical repertoire.

12:00 AM: Fear Agent: The Last Goodbye #1

I have to say I am quite surprised. This review reads like Ms. Hudson wrote it many hours previously. It is even better than most of her “Awake State” reviews. But, knowing the stages of fatigue as well as I do, this is merely the blessed, yet short-lived, shot of adrenaline that comes from being awake for so long. One thinks that the sleep one previously thought one desperately needed only moments ago is a ludicrous notion. Sleep is for the weak, and one is no longer weak. Enjoy it while you can, Ms. Hudson.

The Kill Bill Volume 2 comparison is very apropos, as the story beats are quite similar (genre and characterization differences aside). She gives a lot of information about the issue itself, as well as what she thinks about it, and why she thinks it. And her wordplay at the end is exquisite: “his life would forever be divided into those two worlds–before It, and after It–balanced on the fulcrum of a single moment.”

2:00 AM: Finder: Five Crazy Women

Is this merely an excuse for Ms. Hudson to write about how impolite sex is? No, I don’t think so. There are many places where it looks like the review will just become an essay on sex, but Ms. Hudson manages to stay remarkably on point. She confines her review to the main character and his sexual proclivities, which helps in making the book seem interesting while at the same time revealing very little about what most of the book is about (presumably, as I have not read the book in question myself). However, conjuring up the spirits of anthropology and sociology is a strange way to make a book seem enjoyable (unless the book is about anthropology and sociology and one is giving a talk at an anthropology and sociology symposium). That is not to say that either of these subjects are inherently unexciting, just that most of the world seems to think so.

4:00 AM: Silverfish HC

This post is cleverly disguised as a review. In reality, this is a mere description of the work in question. Most of this is just copy that could conceivably be found on the back cover Ms. Hudson is so taken in by (although I will admit I chuckled at her axiom joke). The small bit of actual subjectiveness comes from her disappointment in the finale of the book, but even here she only compares it unfavorably to an episode of Japanese animation, which similarities include only the amusement park scene in question.

However, the post ends with an installment “Laura Hudson’s Life” in which she sells off her copy of Silverfish, which I have to admit, is a value judgment in and of itself. Although, fifteen dollars is quite a deal. I am quite certain that somebody out there will enjoy this book more than Ms. Hudson did.

6:00 AM: Fun Home GN

This is the beginning of the end, with only three reviews remaining. Ms. Hudson, while floundering in the middle there (presumably after the Red Bull had worn off), finishes very, very strong, with the three best reviews of the entire cycle.

First, we get a review of Fun Home, but Ms. Hudson is not content with just any old review. No, she reviews it through the lens of literature and language, commenting on how literature and language was a prison of his own making for Ms. Bechdel’s father, but an instrument of freedom for Ms. Bechdel herself, the proverbial file in the birthday cake, if you will. “She speaks to be known, and he speaks so that he will not be.” Genius. This review is so well written, I will have to take a second look at this particular work, as I did not originally enjoy it.

This installment of “Laura Hudson’s Life” is mostly concerned about the genesis of this particular analysis, which is a mixture of exhaustion and an unwillingness to repeat the review she had previously given to others.

8:00 AM: Doom Patrol v1

At first glance, this looks like nothing but nonsense piled onto a heap of gobbledygook with a side order of hogwash. “What? Has sleeplessness finally broken her?” the unwary reader may ask. No, it has not. She remains unbroken and undeterred. Just look at what she has written and what image from the the dense and vast trade paperback she has paired it with. These are not the lunatic rantings of an insomniac, these are the carefully constructed words of a woman fully in control of her faculties. “This is how we make meaning: by turning in upon ourselves again and again and again like a strand of hair traded between fingers, plaited inwards down along a single invisible line.” What better way to review a work by Grant Morrison, I ask you?

1:00 PM (twenty-seven hours from when she started): Casanova v1: Luxuria

The longest and best of all of Ms. Hudson’s reviews, it is also her last. If I were a betting man, I would not have wagered on this outcome. My money would have been on her last couple of reviews being barely coherent thoughts on the meaning of life. While there is a fair amount of that in this last review, it is all through the lens of Casanova. In the midst of all this existenstial questioning, Ms. Hudson heaps more praise on this book than any other she reviewed, and she is quite right to do so.

If you read only one review in this grand experiment, read this one, because my fevered mind cannot formulate the words to properly analyze this review. It is something one has to see for one’s self.

“Laura Hudson’s Life” also ends here, in an explanation on why she performed this small piece of performance art. Her explanation is one that will undoubtedly elicit sympathy from some, and ire from others. As well as she can explain it, Matt Fraction can explain it better, and I will reproduce his words in toto here:

“I think you gotta bleed for it. You gotta wail away in these pages as hard as you can and believe in what you do like what you do means saving the world. You can approach it however you like but when you stick that goddamn landing and come arms-up for all the world to see, the look on your face has to sell it. Even if nobody else believes—or cares, or even reads the thing—when you fight in this ring you gotta fight like you mean it.”

Ms. Hudson certainly fought like she meant it. Every word of it.

And so we come to an end. What a long, strange journey it has been. My congratulations go to Ms. Hudson on a job fairly well done. She started strong, weakened in the middle, but finished stronger than she had ever been. Also my thanks, for providing readers everywhere a glimpse into the mind of a real life comic book fanatic.

P.S. The title of this post comes from Harold Bloom’s highly influential book on poetics: The Anxiety of Influence. The whole quote is thus: “Shelley speculated that poets of all ages contributed to one Great Poem perpetually in progress.” Don’t read this particular book unless you have to (or are really into poetic theory).

Also, this whole post is a farce, so don’t come here flaming and telling me I was too hard on Laura. This was nothing but brotherly ribbing, all in good fun. Her 24-hour-a-thon (which turned into 26 hours) was crazy and awesome, and she did well all things considered. Hats off, sis, and congrats on making it the whole way through. Most importantly, thank you for providing me with fodder for this blog post, which is the best thing I’ve written in ages.