ADVANCE REVIEW: Public Relations #6

Public Relations is a book that isn’t afraid to mix its metaphors, with a sword and sorcery type of kingdom requiring a PR team.  This issue starts with Dan Clover struggling with a couple of situations.  Firstly, he has to write the eulogy for the recently murdered Knight of the Realm, Rhett Cross.  Clover is also struggling to deal with the ramifications of showing the world his would be girlfriends bum.  All in all a dire set of circumstances, to be sure.

The book is written by Dave Justus and Matthew Sturges, both of whom have strong credentials in this type of environment, with their respective work on Fables amongst other things, although with a comedic twist.  The pair cover a pretty basic storyline with heavy exposition, in which lies the funny, which if you have the patience to read the high number of dialogue boxes, you may find funny.  Looking at this issues alone, exposition can either kills the book, taking the reader too much time to get to the eventual payoff or it’s been used to prop up the lack of any real character movement.

The art in the book is by Steve Rolston who gives the book an old school Archie look, which may not appeal to young comic book fans.  For me, as someone who isn’t an Archie fan, I still found the art entertaining in a simplistic way and let’s be honest, a humour book kinda needs a simpler style of art.  The expressions on the faces easily convey their emotions, which has the negative impact of making me wonder why there is so much exposition.  Rolston’s work is inked by Jose Marzan, Jr who does an ok job.  Colors are provided by Hi-Fi, who are equally up to the task.

Reading the book  was kind of hard work.  Yes its funny in places, but the set up is way too long and in places I just lost interest. Also, I haven’t quite forgiven Sturges for his Justice Society of America work.  As it is, it may be that Public Relations requires it’s own spin doctor.

[yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]

Author Profile

Johnny "The Machine" Hughes

I am a long time comic book fan, being first introduced to Batman in the mid to late 70's. This led to a appreciation of classic artists like Neal Adams and Jim Aparo. Moving through the decades that followed, I have a working knowledge of a huge raft of characters with a fondness for old school characters like JSA and The Shadow

Currently reading a slew of Bat Books, enjoying a mini Marvel revival, and the host of The Definative Crusade and Outside the Panels whilst also appearing on No-Prize Podcast on the Undercover Capes Podcast Network

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