Friday, March 15, 2013

365 Comics...74: Fairy Quest: Outlaws #2 (2013)

I've never much liked Humberto Ramos' art, which is a lie.  Instead I mean to say I never much liked Humberto Ramos' art in mainstream superhero comics.  He was one of the forebearers paving the way for Manga's broad cartoony influence on the American superhero mainstream, and I just never cottoned to it.  Outside of the severe mismatch of his style with spandex, I actually have always found him to be a tremendous talent. 

I haven't followed his career at all purposefully, but I've definitely seen him around, his work on various Spider-Man projects is almost inescapable (but I've never been Much of a Spidey fan either).  It's nice to finally see his work in a genre that seems especially tailored to his style.

He has worked extensively with Paul Jenkins over the past decade or more, but Fairy Quest may actually be my first exposure to their collaborations.  It's another entry in the "fairy tale shared-universe" conceit made popular by Fables (and later Grimm and Once Upon A Time), wrapped in a Princess Bride-esque narrative framework.  I'm not a big consumer of fairy stories but this is as entertaining as any I've read.  The main quibble is the foot that this was presented as a 2-part mini-series, when, by the end of this issue, it is evident that it is just the start of a bigger story (to be continued in the next mini-series "Fairy Quest: Travelers").

I guess this release structure permits the writer and artist time to work on other projects or take the time they need rather than feel the pressure of an ongoing or bigger mini series but this 2-parter does just feel like a very good looking and well conceived tease.

1 comment:

Adj said...

He was the perfect artist for Impulse though. The early issues Ramos and Waid did were just magical :)