Written by Darren Davis & Zach Hunchar
Art by GMB Chomichuk
(Bluewater Productions)
Pull: Absolutely.
Annie says: The best way to explain the premise for this comic is to take Joker, in Arkham Asylum, make him into a girl and less of a villain and you’ve got Insane Jane. Not only is this comic a pretty original plotline, it’s aesthetically maddening which, I think, is the entire point.
This comic stems from a miniseries that is also worth picking up. Jane is a regular woman who wants nothing more than to be a superhero; given the opportunity, she saves an innocent man from a convenience store robbery and creates an alter ego; The Avenging Star. As soon as Jane’s aspiration to become a superhero is obtained, her regular life spirals completely out of control. She’s beaten up verbally and physically, orphaned, and put under psychiatric care in an asylum, which is where this issue picks up.
Jane, who doesn’t sleep, spends most of her days talking to herself and recreating action scenes she encountered during her time as Avenging Star. She’s medicated on a daily basis and keeps to herself, until a new patient arrives, Grant. Grant comes in and suggests that he and The Avenging Star team up and break out of the asylum together. In a classic comic book manner, they do just that. The plot is original and well done. The rants that Jane goes on while alone are manic and perfectly convey that feeling to the reader; there should be no question in your mind that Jane is crazy because she is, in fact, absolutely insane.
The real focus of this review, though, is on the artwork used. It looks like a series of stock image backgrounds with classic depictions of the super villains that Jane fights. You can see the indentations on the paper and it has a great scrapbook feel to it. Saying it has a scrapbook feel almost diminishes how truly original it is, though. I took the time to dig through some of GMB Chomichuk and his style of illustration truly brings the stories he illustrates to life. In the case of Insane Jane, I am positive it could not have been done any other way; it is an absolute perfect match. I can’t find a whole lot of information about him but anyone who knows his work (or how to pronounce his first name?) should spread the information because not only is he talented but he’s doing great things for comic education.
Insane Jane: Avenging Star #2 and #3
Written by Zach Hunchar & Darren G. Davis
Art by GMB Chomichuk
(Bluewater)
Pull: Immediately.
Annie says: Having been floored by the first issue I was thrilled when I saw that issues two and three were on the pull list for this week. When we last left Jane and Grant they had just escaped from the asylum and were making a run for it from the hospital security guards. They are destined for adventure and these two issues embody the word.
In issue #2, we find out that not only are hospital security are after the duo but now the local police force is involved. They’re hot on the trail of our superheroes when they get to a waterfall and realize that there’s no possible way that anyone could survive the fall. Except they do. They’re wet and cold and now on the search for a secret lair. They stumble across a house they believe is vacant only to find that Jane’s arch nemesis, Omega One, is lurking in the background. Or is he? As Jane’s medication wears, Omega One is “revealed” as a hermit who had been living in the house that Jane and Grant broke into. After Jane dismantles Omega One’s face with a baseball bat, they decide this location is no longer secure and must move, quickly. They steal a car and decide to head to the train station, all the while, the police are trailing them. After crashing the car into the wall of the train station, our heroes soon realize that the train station is FULL of supervillains (aka pedestrians) and proceed to kill them all.
In issue #3 we find out that our heroes feel as if they need a little break, and head off to Las Vegas to take in some fun. Grant leaves to run some “errands” and tells Jane it might be best for her to relax and take a dip in the hotel pool. No one knows how they got a room or how they’re paying for said room or where Jane got a bikini so quickly but, it’s not really important. The important stuff happens when Omega One shows up again, this time as an ally. The information he gives to Jane is not only heartbreaking but explosive, in more ways than one.
What I continue to love about this comic is that the author does such a killer job of making sure the reader knows that these two characters are absolutely insane. Jane goes off on full-page, virtually incoherent tangents about who knows what and as soon as you flip the page, she’s back to giggling and having a great time, totally innocent to the grim reality she’s creating for herself during these mass killing sprees. You can’t help but love her character because she honestly doesn’t know that what she is doing is wrong. When she uses a rake to smash a pedestrian’s skull apart, she thinks she’s helping make the world a better place. The artwork is consistent in these issues in giving the reader an insight into Jane and Grant’s brains. There is not one bad thing I can say about this comic, ladies and gents. Not one bad thing at all.
Insane Jane -Avenging Star #1
Writer: Darren G. Davis & Zach Hunchar
Pencils: GMB Chomichuk
Cover Artist: GMB Chomichuk
Published by Bluewater Productions
Previously, on Insane Jane: Jane was a mousy young thing who wanted nothing more than to be amazing, spectacular, invincible and other adjectives that Stan Lee was fond of. A chance encounter with a convenience store robbery changed her life forever, filling her with zeal to save the innocent and become… The Avenging Star! With her homemade costume, Jane patrolled the streets fighting evil (or whatever passed for evil.) Her first interactions with a villain called the Shadowy Man sent Jane into a spiral of tragedy as bad things began happening all around her, leaving her life forever changed. After her initial foray into superheroics, Jane (whose last name I’ve searched for and can’t find in my copies of the original miniseries) has been left with scars physical and emotional, orphaned (through means that you honestly HAVE to see in order to believe) and under professional psychiatric care in an asylum. That is where this story begins…
My first impression of this book is how DIFFERENT the art is from the first mini. In her initial outings, Jane was drawn in a style that is reminiscing of Scott Kurtz work on ‘Captain Amazing,’ a soft-edged cartoony art style that evoked a sense of fun and wacky adventures (and really set off the climactic horrors of that first series nicely.) Jane herself was always presented in full color, while the people around her and her day-to-day grind were all black and white, a device that worked very well. This issue’s art is a whole new ballgame, an impressionistic, almost photo-collage that reminds me favorably of the work of Dave McKean and Bill Sienkiewicz. Jane starts the issue in her padded room, hallucinating her wonderful battles as The Avenging Star, before remembering that it’s all hallucination. “I need to make a change,” thinks our heroine. “I don’t want to end up like SOME people here… They’re crazy!” Heh… Given that she says this with her face still scarred by her own actions, there’s some black humor in that statement.
Indeed, there’s black humor throughout the issue, introducing (possibly) a new inmate named Grant who seems to share her love of costumed characters. Insane Jane has a really impressive stream-of-consciousness freakout halfway through the book that ends with her deciding that the nurse who gives Jane her daily meds is the source of all her troubles… and Nurse Gayman MUST BE STOPPED. Jane and Grant become partners in crime, and the issue ends with them making a run for the border in a beautifully illustrated sequence. To be honest, the whole issue is visually stunning, changing the black-and-white to color motif of the first Insane Jane miniseries and swapping it for a new dichotomy: the backgrounds and bit players take on the pea-green cast of the institutional paint used at the asylum, while Jane gets a lively pastel palette, and her hallucinations are drawn in a harsh (but appropriate) blood-red color. The issue also goes places that I never expected, places that the usual “hero feigning madness” stories could NEVER have attempted, allowing us to see something new and different that characters firmly established in a regular superhero reality simply wouldn’t be able to do.
My major concern with this issue is the VAST gulf in tone and art-style from the previous Insane Jane series, a change that could be off-putting to anyone who loved the cartoon adventures of the girl in the homemade cape, but even that doesn’t undermine how neat the visuals are. Setting this “superhero” character in an entirely mundane, real-world setting gives her a depth that could be fun to watch the creators play with, and I like the joy that she takes in her hallucinated hero adventures. It is, admittedly, a dark tale (though not yet as dark as the climax of the first miniseries) and as the first issue of four, it may not accurately portray what the whole mini is really going to be about, but it does give you enough to get you interested in who this girl is, what’s up with her backstory (a bit of business that is touched on multiple times, but never explicitly spoiled in the issue) and what kind of mischief she might be able to get into. The test of success with any title (but especially with many independents) is “Does this story remind me too much of anything else?” Aside from some naming similiarities (Crazy Jane of the Doom Patrol is similarly themed, but a completely different take, while Painkiller Jane… um… exists. I’ve never read any of her stories, but I have it on good authority that her conceptualization is different) this book isn’t a take on somethin we’ve seen before or a love-letter to another body of work. There’s still some (probably intentional) ambiguity regarding Grant and his motives, but overall, it’s an engaging book that I went through more than once just to goggle at the art. Insane Jane – The Avenging Star #1 is interesting, visually stimulating, and creepy-in-a-good-way, earning 4 out of 5 stars overall. Bluewater Productions just got this one on my pull list…
From Famous Monsters of Filmland
Comic Review: Insane Jane: Avenging Star Issue 1
Posted by Dominic in Comics, Latest News, Reviews on July 7th, 2010
When it comes to musicals, if I don’t enjoy the music I’m not going to enjoy the show. I have a similar issue with comics. If I don’t take to the artwork, Ray Bradbury could have written the story and I’d be hard pressed to continue reading the series. This poses a problem from time to time when reviewing comics. Say I’m on the fence about a story, if the artwork is through the roof fantastic I may be swayed to review the comic a bit better than I otherwise intended. What happens when the artwork annoys me so much I just can’t see past my minor issues with the story?
Thus is the case with Bluewater Comics follow up to the well received 2008 miniseries Insane Jane written by Darren G. Davis. Not being familiar with the original comic I was at a loss on my initial reading of the first issue of Insane Jane: Avenging Star co-written by Darren G. Davis and Zach Hunchar. Completely thrown off by GMB Chomichuks artwork (which I’ll discuss later in the review) I had to re-read the first few pages a couple of times just to harness any interest to continue reading. That is a big issue for me when it comes to enjoying comics. However, I know well enough that first impressions of any kind aren’t always the best impressions so I persevered and finished issue 1.
Did I enjoy the comic? That is a tricky question. Initially I’d have to say no, I didn’t care for the issue. That is not to say I didn’t enjoy parts of the story, or that I have no appreciation for the comic itself. The idea of a girl living in an insane asylum who believes herself to be a super hero is quite fantastic actually, and I rather enjoyed seeing the concept unfold throughout the pages. Unfortunately, I simply could not get emotionally attached to Jane or any of the other characters. Keeping in mind this is the first issue, I am hesitant to giveInsane Jane: Avenging Star a bad mark.
As I mentioned earlier my biggest problem was the artwork. I did not like the artwork for this issue. To some, the skewed realism may seem apropos to the content of the fiction. I toyed with this idea for a while, and though I don’t disagree with said idea, I simply didn’t take to GMB Chomichuks work plain and simple.
I read comic’s for fun. I couldn’t tell you who the top sought after artists or writers are. I don’t make a fuss over who’s drawing a certain cover. I like what I like and that’s all there is to it. I realize by saying thus any hard core comic book enthusiasts reading this review may completely disregard my critique of this comic; as they should. My intention is to peak your interest in either direction so you may be curious enough to go out and pick up a copy and make your own decision. My opinion is noted, Insane Jane is a little too insane for me, but check it out for yourself and decide for yourself.
From Calliopes Realm
Insane Jane -Avenging Star #1
Writer: Darren G. Davis & Zach Hunchar
Pencils: GMB Chomichuk
Release Date August 2010
First late me state that this book is insane in a very good way. Second for those who were fans of the original mini series this is going to be a major departure for you, especially artwork wise.
The new artwork departs greatly from the cartoony feel of the first mini series and is now more of a Alex Maleev meets Darwyn Cooke Pop Culture fusion. I really enjoyed not only the new tone storywise where Jane is in an insane asylum trying not to go “crazy”, but the shift in art really brings the dark undertones of the writing out. Jane decides near the end of the first issue with help from Grant, a new inmate that she is indeed the Avenging Star and that her superheroics were not a delusion. This results in her and Grant escaping after taking out several of the staff of the asylum. The only complaint with the issue is the long soliloquy, by Jane that leads her to determine that she is a superhero. Other than that the artwork and writing are stellar. The book earns 4 out of 5 stars and you should definitely
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