Saints #1- Fifty-Word Review: When everything is a joke, nothing is important

Writer: Sean Lewis
Artist: Benjamin Mackey
Publisher: Image Comics
Release Date: 7th October 2015



Intriguing, interesting narrative idea spoilt by quips, one-liners, cuteness, knowing jokes and going for cool, style over substance, diminishing effect of narrative potential, end result irrelevant cool and irritation of this reader. Cool turns story soft, flabby, loses impact. Could have been good. I wanted it to be. It isn’t.


Rating: 4/10 

(Muddled book about a rock band, saints and the devil. Could have been something, but it falls into the same trap of a lot of contemporary comic book media, thinking that one-liners and cleverness is more important than telling an involving story with emotional/intellectual resonance. It’s a shame. There’s a good idea here, but the character dialogue is far too quippy and irreverent, diminishing any impact that the story could have had, turning everything that happens into an inconsequential joke. A book with a muddled tone is a failure. The reader doesn’t know what it’s supposed to be, and thus, it ends up being nothing.)