Jason Starr

Gotta say, if AWA keeps pushing out comics like this, they're lining themselves up to kick some serious ass in the industry.

I do have to say, though, that this story works so much better in the trade collection. I read the very first issue back when it came out and, while it was interesting, it didn't give me a sense of where the story was actually headed. Turns out, if I can stayed on for issue two, I might have continued on.

But as a trade, the story's all here, ready to be consumed in one show more big gulp. And it's so much better than I thought it would be.

Everything clicks here. The writing is very good, with characters that are aggravating and real. No one likes an asshole who's usually right, and from start to finish, I really didn't like Eduardo, but he was a well-written asshole. And all the other characters were equally well written.

Now, was the Texan family a little too much Texas Chainsaw Massacre, "don't mess with Texas"? I'm guessing an argument could be made that way, but for the short run of this story, they provided a nice counterpoint to the Mexican cartel.

The other stuff that clicks is the art. Oh, the art. Will Conrad's art is simply gorgeous. Detailed, hyper-realistic, and it just flows beautifully. Not sure I've read anything else that he's done, or maybe this is just his time to shine, but I'll definitely watch for him going forward.

And Ivan Nunes has to be mentioned with equal measure, because, as good as Conrad's line work is, Nunes completely elevates it with a simply stunning colour palette. It's not often that I point to colouring in a comic, but this one absolutely deserves all the nods.

Overall, just a fun little story. It ain't gonna change the world, but it'll definitely take you away from this one for an hour or so. show less

My first Jason Starr. I'm reading this novel in tandem with "Light's Out" and I sense a running theme.

I'm always a sucker for novels with amoral characters, or unsatisfying endings. This one has plenty of that. Richard Segal looks like a normal guy in every sense of the word. He doesn’t manifest any overt psychological abnormalities if his life. At the beginning everything is running smoothly, but when problems arose, he reverted to his primal state of psychopathology.

Starr likes to show more draw his characters from everyday life, make everything seem pretty normal. And then he punches you in the stomach... He pushes his story lines and his characters to extremes, and takes it from there.

Character-driven fiction that starts bad and gets worse, but not necessarily with a dark, relentless tone. I don’t need to like the characters I’m reading about, but I need to understand them. That's fully on display here. I like reading about fucked-up characters...

He was able to capture the perverse pleasures, edgy excitement and dark humour of what I see as twenty-first century noir. I've been into 21st-century noir fiction lately, and I was told in vigorous terms that I should start reading Jason Starr. The vigour and diversity of recent literary noir are difficult to convey in a brief review. That's also not the point here. What's definitely the point here is that Jason Starr is worth keeping an eye on.

One of Starr’s strong points is his ability to make uncompromising pulp traditionalism seem both radical and fresh. More than most authors, Jason Starr uses the workplace as a setting to fuel tensions (vide Richard Segal's interactions with his boss Bob).

What definitely won me over was the abrupt ending. What a stunt. Fitting as hell.
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I have a journal entry from my drinking days that is in the exact same spirit as the first page and a half of this book! Only, I woke up on a couch in Oakland and there was a turtle crawling around the floor below me. Still…

“They called him Slide because he didn’t let anything slide, ever. He’d killed thirteen and counting. Counting like the ritual psycho he was.”

Vulgar. Sleazy. And hilarious! I loved this book and all the crazy shenanigans that both Angela and the M.A.X. get into! show more It's just crazy fun! And the two of them don't actually interact in this book! On one side we get Angela and Slide and a whole bunch of killing. And on the other, we get Max, or the M.A.X. as he labels himself, and his crack dealing delusions of grandeur (and "Scarface"!). Throw in a stripper and a poor, dumb kid from Alabama (and lots of sushi!), and you have the book titled "Slide". Definitely a fun read!

“We never forget and we never fooking forgive, you got that?” show less

This book sucks. Man, it was hyped as being freaking awesome! But it sucked. Straight up sucked.

The book jackets actually told you who dunnit. By page 10 I hated every character and I knew who did all the murders and why.

There was absolutely no suspense whatsoever. Mostly because I was just really annoyed by all the characters; but the person I'm most annoyed at - the Author. Jason Starr, you are not the bomb. Your female characters are one dimensional. Your male lead was an asshole. Your show more criminals were 1 dimensional AND cliche. Really? Your best description was that Johnny Long looked like Johnny Depp? You even gave him the same name - UGH!

This book was just annoying. I skimmed most of it just so I could end it all. I hate leaving a book unread, even horrible ones (except Twilight, that one I just went to wikipedia and found out the story so I could skip all the stupid teen angst and horribly anti-21st Century Girl Power-ness of Bella Swan - Bella Swan? Seriously?) So this book - it drags out. I think Starr just didn't have a story. Chapter 1 was Adam's perspective of night one. Chapter 2, his wifes. Chapter 3, his daughters. Except that we don't learn anything new and since the characters are so cliche and flat all we got was a retelling of the exact same thing! This goes on the entire book - the. entire. book.

Skip it. Just don't even read it. Ignore all the "good things" said about the book but it's all lies. All LIES!!!

Yeah, I hated this book that much. show less