Fantastic Fangirls: Comics and Culture

by Sigrid

SPOILERS FOLLOW for Greg Rucka and Matthew Southworth’s Stumptown #1.

The first thing I knew about Greg Rucka was that he’s Jen Van Meter’s husband. This was the piece of information I needed in order to get me to read Gotham Central. I’d read all of Van Meter’s Hopeless Savages and loved it. I loved the imagination and passion of the series, its central conceit of an oddball family that works. I loved the female characters, I loved the depictions of sexuality and relationships.

So when Caroline recommended Rucka’s stuff to me, saying he could write strong female characters well, I thought about Hopeless Savages. “Hmm,” I thought to myself. “If this Rucka guy is in a long-term relationship with Jen Van Meter, he might understand writing about kickass women.” And on that I gave his writing a shot.

I haven’t read all of Rucka’s work. I’ve missed his work on Wolverine, and Action Comics, and Wonder Woman. And I’ve never read Grendel or Hellboy. But I’ve read almost everything else. I’d be really hard-pressed to say which of his works is my favorite. (It might be A Fistful of Rain, the standalone novel about an alcoholic rock star and the trouble she’s in. But if that’s my favorite, it’s only by a squeak and a smidge.)

Anyway.

It’s safe to say the comic I was most looking forward to this week was Stumptown #1. I was not disappointed.

Oni Press is publishing this new creator-owned Rucka project. With art by Matthew Southworth and colors by Lee Loughridge, Stumptown features everything I love in comics. In it we have a rich supporting cast of individual characters who all stand distinct from each other, multicultural casting, and complex personal relationships. We have tough women of a variety of ages and abilities. We have a teenage girl in some sort of trouble, way over her head. And we have a smart, tough, self-sabotaging female P.I. lead with a dependent brother she loves and a set of addiction problems.

I swear, I think Rucka wrote this comic just for me. (See my above-named love of A Fistful of Rain, mmkay?)

The protagonist is great. Rucka does that thing which writers are hounded to do — and with which writers of comics have a particular burden to bear — he shows us who the protagonist is. He shows us her life, her motivations. We see why she makes her decisions and how those play out. We’re not told. In fact, we’re not told much of anything — we follow along with the lead as the flashback story plays out. (You might be wondering why I don’t name her. That’s because her name isn’t given until the last page of the book. Rucka clearly put a hell of a lot of thought into this name, and he kept it on the last page of the book deliberately. There’s a couple of spots where her name would have easily fit into the dialogue, namely the phone conversation with Charlotte and the brief exchange with the bartender at Ringside Steakhouse. After all that effort, I’m not going to spoil it here.)

In addition to the story and the characters, the setting and look of Stumptown are both great. There’s a note in the back from Southworth about his efforts to maintain the richness of detail and realism in the settings. The comic is set in Portland, Oregon. Southworth and Rucka are working hard to make their Portland match the real Portland. I haven’t seen love-of-place like this since Brian Wood’s Local. (Or, before that, since Emma Bull’s War for the Oaks, a novel which has a spot in my heart because I live in its setting.)

Southworth also does a solid job with making all the characters distinct. I never got confused as to whether I’d seen a character before. Believe me, once you get out of the superhero costumes, this can be a real problem for some artists. (And it’s a problem for some artists even in the superhero titles. Greg Land, I am naming you.) I also want to particularly commend Southworth for his character design on Sue-Lynne and Ansel.

On the technical matters, this comic is well done. Solid lettering, excellent layouts and panel design. The coloring is atmospheric rather than realistic. Scenes have a color palette conveying time of day, or place, or emotions. I thought it worked well, especially in the more heavily-inked panels.

But honestly, I wasn’t looking at the lettering or the colors the first time through. I was reading this as fast as I could. How much trouble is our P.I. in? How come everybody knows her brother? Is she one of Sue-Lynne’s grandchildren, too? What happened to her and Ansel’s parents? What trouble is Charlotte in? Who are the flannel guys? What does Marenco want, really? Omg, what is UP with Marenco’s DAUGHTER?? Are these cops on the level?

And what, what is the significance of our lead’s name?

I highly recommend you check out the preview of Stumptown #1 at CBR. And I highly, highly recommend getting a copy for yourself. This isn’t a wait-for-trade kind of story. This first issue paid off immediately, and left me clamoring for more.

Thank you, again, Mr. Rucka, for another great comic and another great female lead. And thank you, Ms. Van Meter, for being a kickass enough writer that I bothered to try your husband’s work.

Email: sigrid @ fantasticfangirls.org
Twitter: sigridellis