Wow, is Punisher Max: Butterfly a crap read.
I mean, I didn’t even hate it, because it simply isn’t engaging enough to engender feelings of any sort other than a desire to finish the many-paged book that at no point develops a cohesive plot or fleshes out it’s characters.
This atrocity casts some real doubt as to the “blogger-to-comics-writer” business model that we all hoped writer Valerie D’Orazio was going to herald.
Granted, she’s an especially poor blogger in this reader’s opinion. In an apolitical sense, she’s not unlike Sarah Palin in that she’s used tales of being victimized to establish her credibility and build her fan base.
I don’t not feel sorry for her, and I don’t doubt the truth in her stories. But if being unfairly treated by the biz is somehow magic writing dust, then by god I am Earnest f-ing Hemingway to the power of 10.
Being treated unfairly sucks. It happens to about 90% of the workplace in ways even more terrible than what Ms. D’Orazio claims to have gone through, and it leaves you feeling as if the world owes you something.
Sadly, it doesn’t. One hopes the travails will serve as life lessons that make us better. Ms. D’Orazio has merely parlayed her tales of woe into a writing job that is just god-awful.
This is easily the most amateurish book I’ve read this year; the dialog actually references a popular formulaic “how-to-write-an-adventure” book that Ms. D’Orazio appears to have been using as a writing aid, and - spoiler alert - the titular character appears in exactly one panel, on the final page.
I don’t typically review comics with grades or stars, but - no stars. Incomplete. Remedial Ed required before advancing.
Sorry Val, there was nothing personal in this review - I know the blogosphere is full of haters - but this just did not do it for me even a little.
So, the new Punisher MAX bad guy is kinda like Catherine the Great - if she were a big, burly Amish dude.
