Matt Fillbach

One of my reasons for loving Clone Wars Adventures, the series (based on the 2-D cartoon) that was replaced by this series of The Clone Wars graphic novellas (based on the 3-D cartoon), was the art of the Fillbach Brothers, who I think are cartoonists par excellence; their work on the series was kinetic and delightful. Unfortunately, their style I think suffers a bit when forced to conform to the style of the 3-D cartoon, which is in the case in The Suncrasher Trap, a story of Obi-Wan, show more Anakin, Ahsoka, and company trying to stop a Separatist superweapon. It's basically fine; as a big fan of DC in the 1980s, I was glad to see Mike W. Barr on scripting duties (I had no idea he was still writing comics!) but it's a bit staid. I think the flat coloring of the 2-D series suits the Fillbachs' art style much more than the shaded coloring attempting to mimic the 3-D series. (In some later novellas, the artists don't seem to have to conform to the show's art style as much; I wish that had been true here.) show less

The Colossus of Destiny wants to be an awesome Mace Windu story, but it has a hard time painting Mace's impulsiveness and determination as anything other than stupid recklessness. Basically, this story wouldn't've had to happen if Mace had stopped and thought for a moment. Is the moral of the story that Mace will never ever be written as well as in Shatterpoint? Probably. Excellent art from the Fillbach Brothers as always, of course.

I wasn't sure what to expect when I first began reading this collection of graphic short stories. There are thirteen stories in all, each of them dark and gritty. And I loved just about every one. The first story left me stunned. The second, about a man with an ill wife who is about to lose his farm, is probably my favorite. It was called "The Silo" and was written and drawn by Jeff Lemire. Another one of my favorites was called "The Albanian" by M.K. Perker about an immigrant janitor who show more stumbles upon a murder-suicide in the office building where he works. I had to read the story called "Fracture" by Alex de Campi, Hugo Petras, and Clem Robbins twice because I hadn't realized the first time there was a special way to read it. The author and artist were quite creative with the set up of the story. I think it is pretty ingenious now that I better understand what they were aiming to do.

My experience with crime fiction short stories is hit and miss. Too often I find that characterization is sacrificed in the name of plot. Although I have read crime fiction graphic novels before, this was my first experience reading crime fiction shorts in graphic form. I was really impressed with how well done each of the stories were. So much is said within each pane and so few words are needed to get the entire story across (except in one case which was a short story, "Trustworthy" by Ken Lizzi and Joëlle Jones, written in words with a few art drawings to go along with it). I think readers of noir and who don't mind a lot of grit in their crime fiction should give Noir: A Collection of Crime Comics a try. show less

Man, these quarterly digest comics tying into the new The Clone Wars TV show are just not rocking it for me the way the old Clone Wars Adventures ones did. I think four short stories work better than one long one does in this instance. Or maybe it's not so much the medium as the story being told with it-- Anakin going back to the podracing circuit now that he's a Jedi Knight has great dramatic potential, but instead we mostly get some "thrilling" romantic antics from Ahsoka. And podracing show more had pretty much been played out as a source of excitement within five minutes of its introduction in The Phantom Menace, so I'm not sure why we're going back to that well here. As always, the clean, kinetic, fun art of the Fillbach Brothers saves this thing, and they're the reason I keep coming back. I hope they get the opportunity to write one of these volumes; the stories that they wrote and illustrated were always my favorites of the CWA series. show less