Polite Dissent

Scott’s First Rule of Comic Books is “the plot needs to advance every issue.” Frank Cho, the writer and artist of Shanna the She-Devil should really bear this in mind.

At the end of the Shanna #4, people in camp were dying of a dread disease while Shanna and Doc were making their way back with the antidote.

At the end of this Shanna #5, people in camp are dying of a dread disease while Shanna and Doc are making their way back with the antidote. During the issue they’ve moved maybe 20 feet.

Admittedly, it’s hard to tell a story when — out of 22 pages — the first ten are spent showing a tyrannosaurus rex being attacked by the raptors. It’s beautiful dinosaur art and the reader understands that the raptors are very dangerous – but does it really need half the comic to convey this information? Then there are two pages on the survivors back at camp. That leaves 10 pages for the main story, and two of those are a double page spread. That leaves nine pages for the main story, and most of those are four-panel pages. Is it any wonder there’s no story?

I’ll admit the art is beautiful, but I don’t think the art alone is worth $3.50 an issue (that’s Scott’s Second Law of Comic Books: comics should be a combination of art and story).

Just for laughs, how does Shanna compare value wise to other dinosaur books?

Not too bad, actually. Shanna is cheaper to read than the children’s books (though those are hardcover), and about equivalent to the college texts (though there’s probably more plot in the textbooks). Jurassic Park is the best value though, hands down.

And before you start whining about collectability, a first edition of Jurassic Park hardcover can be obtained for about $35, or eight cents per page (a signed edition will run you $125, or 30 cents per page).

I just wonder why Marvel feels the need to totally re-invent its characters this way? Do we really need a cloned-by-Nazis eugenics-gone-good Shanna? What was wrong with the original Shanna? And whatever happened to Liberty Meadows?