Try to Follow the Adventures of Robin!
The year was 2005 and DC universe was getting over an Identity Crisis and Hal Jordan traded in his Spectre cape and boxer briefs to once again be a Green Lantern. But what was that Red Robin kid doing back when he wasn't named after a burger place? Looking like a crudely drawn Damian Wayne!
Hello! This is the CrazyScarecrow coming at you with another review, trying to do a different format for my reviews, and I am going to be attempting to review more!
In this issue of the old ongoing Robin series we get a story written by Bill Willingham and confusing to look at art by Damion Scott. We open up the book to find Robin having multiple arrows suck in his chest. After picking out the arrows and having Robin tell us about the body armor he is wearing and all that. Anyway we soon find out that Robin is being targeted by an assassin. An assassin we will come to find out is named the Rising Sun Archer. For the most part, the Robin parts of this comic is mainly him tracking down the Rising Sun Archer and having a brawl with her. We also get the side stories of Alfred comforting Robin's step-mother Dana Drake, a lawyer trying to call some relatives of Robin, and we get to read about the Penguin's weapon dealing!
Overall the story is good and interesting. I do think the Alfred part of the story was unneeded as well as the lawyer part, but then again this coming from a guy who just jumped on this issue. I really enjoyed Bill Willingham's writing. I always felt that the Batman related of the 90's and 2000's always had this great, refreshing feeling to them. They all felt natural.
Why the low score CrazyScarecrow? Its because of the art! The pages tend to be overly cluttered and confusing to look at! Now from what I read about the artist, Damion Scott, he gets much of his influence from the hip hop and graffiti scene. Which is awesome! I looked up some of his artwork outside of this and his style is very great for what it is though his art in the comic is not that great. It is very cluttered and like I said earlier very confusing to follow. I think some better work could've gone to laying out the pages. The key to a good comic is to make the art and writing easy to follow throughout the comic. I will say though for the character the style is being applied to (Robin) it is a great choice. Robin is known for being a bright, more upbeat character and the bright, upbeat hip hop style is usually known is great for the bright, upbeat hero. I just feel like layouts for the pages could've been better and using brighter color tones to help the art style more. And also maybe even a little more consistency to how everyone is drawn would've been nice too.
Thanks for reading and have a good day or night Comic Vine!
-CrazyScarecrow, Cartoonist and Reviewer of the Old and Sometimes the New.