After I posted last week's post, I did some thinking into how I could be more productive this week. The outcome of this was that I had plenty of print trades I hadn't read and so I would make the effort to burn through at least one of them. But then Blake's Buzz on Twitter announced his plan to read the entire Fraction/Aja run of Hawkeye and my plans changed to what they now are.
It's been nearly eight years since I first (and last) read the first omnibus edition of this run and, my views at the time didn't seem to find it favourable. However, as I thought back to that read, I struggled to remember what exactly happened. Therefore, I figured a re-read was maybe due.
Very little has changed since the last time I read the book as Hawkeye Collected Edition Vol. 1 sees what happens when everyone's (second) favourite Marvel Archer isn't running with the Avengers. Backed up his Young Avengers namesake, Kate Bishop, Clint Barton spends his downtime, battling Storms (the actual kind, not the X-woman), getting in trouble with women (what else is new) and being a very persistent irritation for a gang of tracksuit wearing thugs and the criminal underworld at large.
However, I'm not sure whether it's my age and wisdom which has done it or if the material is just more relevant to me now than it was then, but this first omnibus of Hawkeye was so much more entertaining than I recall it being. As with the first time I picked this book up, the concept still appeals to me and Matt Fraction's inserting a real sass and wit in the characters (particularly the Hawkeyes) works wonders.
The thing is that I had previously expected Hawkeye to be a comic series more akin to what we saw in the Vision in that we were taking a look at Hawkeye's personal life. What I realised as I read this volume with older, fresher (if that isn't paradoxical) eyes, and what I didn't fully appreciate that first time round, is that THIS was his personal life! It occurred to me this time that Clint Barton is a screw-up with a heart of Gold, a normal guy whose life only makes sense when he draws back the bowstring and sends that arrow flying. Otherwise, every other action that Clint partakes in seems to fall apart around him, either by some form of Spider-man-esque luck or his own self sabotage, and it's this form of life that actually now makes a lot of sense to me.
As a result of this, I found the entire book far more entertaining and captivating than I remember doing all of those years ago. I loved the characters who turned throughout these eleven issues, even the tracksuit mafia this time. I wondered if this was because, while their effectiveness still seemed rather pointless, it was what they represented in how Clint's fight with them once again showed he didn't consider the consequences when it was revealed their 'higher' connections. In fact, I saw this in a lot of the characters as man suffered from Clint diving in without considering the ramifications.
As for the art ... well, I think that, much like the story and the writing, I've turned a complete 180 on the art. Based on my previous thoughts from the previous read, my thoughts on the art by the various artists was 'mixed' at best. However, I feel that, on this occasion, I can see these various styles for the quality and message they emit. For instance, I really felt that all of the artists for the series were given not given the issues which they produce by accident but because their styles worked for the environments Clint and Kate and everyone found themselves in.
For instance, David Aja's style, which I absolutely adored as I progressed through the title with some truly gorgeous layouts that really connected to me, seemed to appear primarily in issues set in New York, with Matt Hollingsworth's colour shades of colour helping give it this rather cold, steely vibe which (probably, I've never been there) makes sense for the City. The there is Javier Pulido, whose work I loved on the She-Hulk run by him and Charles Soule. Now, while it didn't connect with me as much as Aja's, I certainly enjoyed it here and felt that it gave a good European-esque vibe which helped when the story moved away from the city and to locales like Madripoor. Finally, there was Francesco Francavilla work, which I have loved since I first read Black Panther: the Man Without Fear. Unfortunately, while I still struggled to connect with it in the same way here (given its major tonal shift to the other styles), I was certainly able to appreciate it more as it worked to display a character's past in terms of almost nightmarish flashbacks.
As a result of this link in respects of the visual/tonal shifts, I think that my struggles dealing with the artwork and its ever changing look were severely lessened here. In fact, it's fair to say that I well and truly loved the art throughout the omnibus (Aja in particular) and that, this time around it helped keep me engrossed as I read through.
I remember saying, back when I had first read this collected trade, how I wish I'd seen more of what the internet hype had said about this series. Well, obviously the added years of knowledge and experience of comic reading have really helped me because, his time round, I really do see it. This first volume of Hawkeye has gone from 'pretty ok' to actually a 'phenomenal read' in my book (as evidenced by the fact I burned through it in only the latter half of the week) and look forward to seeing if the second volume continues in the same direction. That said, I don't remember what I said about the second one so, all being well, it won't have as uphill a struggle in proving my old opinion wrong.
Oh, and before I forget ...
While the latter half of the week was taken up by Hawkeye, the beginning of it saw me produce a review for Pipedream Comics of Lyndon White's Candles. Now, much of what I'm about to say has already pretty much been said in the review proper but, truth be told, it all doesn't hurt to bare repeating.
This is because Candles is a truly beautiful comic book/graphic novel in every sense of the word. It is both beautiful in the visual sense because Lyndon's art is without doubt some of the most gorgeous I've seen and the real high point of the book for me .
I also found the story was also a really beautiful, uplifting tale as I moved through it, although I can't lie when I say it didn't hold a candle (get it? .... ok, moving on) against the art which I thought was, without doubt, the superior part of this book. This is because I found Candles a bit of a struggle to get into as it started, maybe due to a lack of sufficient backstory (or simply that I wasn't feeling it). That said, it certainly improved and came together by the end, culminating in a good read for me.
So, that's been my week and, technically it hasn't ended there. This is because I've already cracked open Hawkeye Volume 2 and started reading (although it sadly couldn't be finished by today). Fortunately, there still (almost) a week before the Hawkeye series on Disney + and I'm confident that it'll be finished in short order.
Which will then allow me to focus on the End of Year backlog for Pipedream Comics.
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