#string divers

Julia: When I first heard the premise for Beauty, I was really excited. An STD that makes you beautiful? A disease that people actually want? That sounds pretty interesting. Not to mention the fact that since the disease physically changes you, everyone will know whether or not you have it. That could lead to some fascinating interactions. I went into it thinking of Black Hole and what an interesting take on sexuality that had been and hoping for another unique look at a subject that is all too often avoided.

Alas, I was sorely disappointed. Beauty read like any crime comic and was as predictable as the sun going down at night. The writing and art were both very good, but it lacked the spark of something new that I had so desperately hoped for. It had your basic conflict between different investigative departments and personal home life issues affecting the members of the task force themselves. The big event in this issue had been heavily hinted at in the marketing so I was expecting it when it happened. I will still probably read the second issue of Beauty, just based on the concept alone, but I had hoped for a more unique start.

String Divers, on the other hand, was fantastic. While I’m not sure how solid the science behind it is and I also find really touchy sibling relationships very weird, the rest of the comic was great. I especially enjoyed the first half of the comic when the String Divers were in their tiny string world trying to save science. I loved the different personalities that all of the androids had, especially the red one. I also appreciate that the scientists working on the project are already confronting that age old question: is it possible to be emotionally attached to a robot or should you just treat them as equipment? I think I’m going to save the rest of my thoughts about String Divers so that I can use them to defend it when Emily tells me what she disliked. Over to you, Emily!

Emily:  Okay!  Sometimes our expectation of how epic or good something is going to be mars our actual experiences.  See, unlike Julia, I don’t follow any comic book news.  Every week I look at what’s coming out and then I decide on what I buy based on whether I think the premise is interesting or not.  The premise of Beauty, an STI that makes you more beautiful, definitely grabbed by attention right away because come on, who doesn’t enjoy a discussion about the outrageous beauty standards and expectations thriving within our society?  Whether there will actually be commentary on this subject or not, I do not know.  What I do know is that I enjoyed reading Beauty a lot more than I enjoyed reading String Divers and it’s probably for a lot of conventional reasons.

Yes, the first issue is a bit predictable but when has that suddenly made something boring or bad?  In an established genre like noir, the interesting part is establishing a well written and well thought out mystery and making it interesting and fun within the established conventions of a genre.  For me Jeremy Haun and James A Hurley established the characters and the setting extremely well without long pages of exposition so that we can get to the fun part: watching how the mystery unravels in front of you as you play detective.

String Divers, on the other hand, was just a lot of “meh” to me.  Not good.  Not bad.  Just… there.  It’s an interesting concept no doubt but what does it do to establish what the comic is about?  As someone who doesn’t know much about string theory than hey it’s a theory to explain our universe, it felt like I was perpetually left out of the loop.  It felt like with this first issue Chris Ryall and Nelson Daniel didn’t know what they wanted their product to be.  Is it supposed to be large scale? Epic?  Is it humorous?  I don’t know!

The other problem I had with it is that it’s basically an ensemble cast.  There were way too many characters they wanted to establish right away, and what that ended up doing for me is that well, I don’t remember any of them.  When you’ve got that many characters fighting for screen time you basically get to know none of them.

Julia: Maybe it was my expectations that made me dislike Beauty. I actually hadn’t read much more than the Previews description of it before reading the comic, but something about the cover made me expect a very different story. I’m just now realizing that this is what made me expect a different kind of story, but the cover kind of feels fantasy-esque and if I’m being completely honest, the title had me thinking about Beauty and the Beast from the beginning. So with the combination of these misperceptions on my part, I was not at all expecting a run of the mill crime story.

The thing about something being predictable is that when you know what’s going to happen and it follows a specific pattern, what are you reading for? I’m fine with things fitting into a familiar genre, but they’ve got to do something new and different within that framework. Although an STD seems like it would do just that, it ended up reading like any other crime story centered around an unknown illness. Actually, like any crime story centered around an unknown anything. Which is all crime stories. Like I said before, I thought the writing and the art of Beauty were good, it just didn’t have that spark that would make me want to read more. And possibly I set myself up for this disappointment with my wacky expectations, but nevertheless, I was underwhelmed.

Emily, I find it interesting that you didn’t feel that you were able to get to know any of the characters in String Divers. I personally felt that we were getting good views of many of them right off the bat. Here is an example to me of how you can do an often played out idea in a new way. Each one of the String Divers has a specific job to do within the team. They’re color coded and have personalities that tend to fit with their task. Yes, this is typical of a team book. But the thing I thought was really neat about String Divers is the idea that they have drawers of these androids so that if one breaks, they just get another one ready to go into the field. Unlike most situations like this, however, these new androids have all of the old memories uploaded into them so that they can learn from previous experiences. So they are inexperienced, new pieces of tech going into the field with a slew of old traumatic memories. I think this plays out nicely in Red’s character within the first issue and I’m excited to see more.

It’s true, we really didn’t get a good sense of the rest of the crew. We know they’re scientists, we know they’re working on things, but for some reason I was okay with it! The String Divers themselves were the main event for me when reading this title and the scientists felt like side characters that we may get to know, but it doesn’t really matter if we do or don’t. Also, very little is known about String Theory so it’s an open field of exploration for a sci-fi writer choosing to write about it! They can make things up and be imaginative to their heart’s desire.

Emily:  I think it’s funny that you got a fantasy vibe from it because I totally thought it was going to be set in a dystopian universe.  Imagine my surprise when it’s not really the stereotypical dystopian I expected at all.  It does lean a little towards crime drama ala csi or law and order but I think it’s simply the fault of the time period it’s set in.  So maybe it’s not so much noir as it is noir-esque?  Either way I’m definitely open to anything at this point because I need to know!  I need those answers and I need them right now!  Truthfully, that’s what I love the most about noir.  That moment when the mystery is explained and it’s all tied together in a neat package and hey, that little detail you overlooked because it seemed insignificant?  That was the crucial clue that tied it all together!

Don’t get me wrong.  I liked the first issue of Beauty a lot.  I’m not saying it’s the best thing ever but it was definitely a compelling open.  On the flip side, I’m not saying don’t pick up String Divers because it’s the worst thing ever.  Granted, I’ll give you the characterization of Red and that specific moment is pretty memorable because there’s potential there and I love when anything can pose the question of humanity and what it means to be human.  String Divers does have small little nuggets of gold scattered here and there, but is it really enough for me?  I really don’t know.  

I realize now that I might have come off a bit harsh when I talked about String Divers previously.  There is definitely a lot of potential there.  I might not be sold on it (yet) but I would have picked up the next issue even if I wasn’t doing this discussion/review thing with Julia.  I just wished that the writers had put a little more effort into establishing where the story is going or what the story is about.

Now, I’m going to be one hundred percent super completely honest here for a moment.  A large part of why I continue a series is purely based on how I feel about it emotionally.  Even when I know that logically something is terribly cliched and horrible, I will probably keep buying as long as it hypes me up enough to want the next issue more than it makes me roll my eyes at it.  Hell, I can even enjoy hate reading something (here’s to looking at you Bucky Barnes: The Winter Soldier) because I get an emotional experience out of it.  For me there’s nothing worse than reading something boring and forgettable because then I’m just wasting my time.

Anyhow, thinking about it now, I think Julia’s right when she said that we probably enjoy different titles because she loves the endless potential that stories like String Divers bring, whereas I’m much more into the now and what the story is doing right at this moment.  A lot of the stuff I enjoy reading does tend to be more plot and character relationships driven.  I just hate filler issues/chapters/episodes because in my opinion that’s just lazy writing.  It doesn’t have to be fast paced or throw a hundred things at my face, but it should contributing to the overall story, whether it be moving the plot forward, world building, or even just defining who these characters are.

Julia: So I think, in summary, Emily and I like very different things and will never agree. However, we both understand the effort and talent put into both Beauty and String Divers. They just sat with us differently and worked with our wants and needs for a comic series in different ways. Whether you’re looking for a crime drama or a weird sciencey adventure, there are books out there for you! I think what we really want the takeaway from this to be is that y’all should keep reading cause at some point you’ll stumble across something you love, even if it’s not the book that the people around you love. Anyhow, I’ll get off my comic book loving soapbox and say thank you for joining us in our discussion!