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Copra #7-9
Copra: Compendium Three
Collects issues 7-9 of Michel Fiffe's one-of-a-kind superhero action series.
- GenresComics
80 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2013
12 people want to read
About the author
Michel Fiffe
139 books81 followersMichel Fiffe is the creator of the action series COPRA, published by Bergen Street Press, and the intimately surreal Zegas, collected by Fantagraphics. He's worked with Marvel, Valiant, and BOOM! and continues to serialize COPRA when he's not writing massive essays on comics of note. Fiffe has produced Bloodstrike: Brutalists (Image Comics) and G.I. Joe: Sierra Muerte (IDW) in their entirety and has recently launched a new title, Negativeland.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
January 12, 2015
The third Copra compendium is the best one yet. Fiffe spends a massive amount of time fleshing out his characters—describing more personality in a page than mainstream comics have managed in decades of issues—while still delivering a new, fast-paced storyline. The art, the dialogue, the world, the characters... every aspect of Copra comes together to make it better than probably any other comic out there today.
April 8, 2017
Dare I say it? I enjoyed this more than any issue of Suicide Squad.
February 16, 2014
Broken team of broken people with powers, doing the Suicide Squad/Thunderbolts "criminals redeeming themselves through shady acts". They even have their own Amanda Waller commander.
Jumping into this acclaimed series with this volume turns out not to be a good idea, at least using Issue 7 as my first taste of this. I'd come to Copra expecting something way beyond what regular comics offers - both in story and art. I half expected some lunatic genius at work here, coming up with fever dream images and a bizarre but satisfying storyline.
Instead I seem to have someone lightly copying stuff we've read elsewhere, mixing it in a newish way and illustrating a pretty straightforward tale of a team of misfits that bristle under their restraints and forced duties. Interesting character snippets Fiffe shows us here, probably lots to mine here later, and maybe the adventures that led to this were weird, cryptic and juicy.
Issues 8 & 9 are better - unique art style, far more action, a few unique character designs, and a good job of not relying on heavy exposition to carry the story. The actual plots are interesting and they have faint touches of early-Warren-Ellis or -Grant-Morrison mind-boggling stuff, but aren't strong enough to really stand up to comparison.
I think there's some character depth in there - seeing the shades of grey and compromised decisions being made - but I found it hard to follow who was thinking/narrating a couple of times so it took some of the strength away for me. I bet this aspect of the series gets better on a re-read.
As frustrated as I sound by the gap between what I expected and what I experienced, I'm hoping that the start of this series carries the ball for the hype it's received, and maybe this was just a temporary aberration of conventional character study and slightly-less-weird than before. I'll try to order Compendium One (it's currently sold out), and may end up revising my opinion here later. (It's been known to happen, for as much of an opinionated dick as I can be.)
Jumping into this acclaimed series with this volume turns out not to be a good idea, at least using Issue 7 as my first taste of this. I'd come to Copra expecting something way beyond what regular comics offers - both in story and art. I half expected some lunatic genius at work here, coming up with fever dream images and a bizarre but satisfying storyline.
Instead I seem to have someone lightly copying stuff we've read elsewhere, mixing it in a newish way and illustrating a pretty straightforward tale of a team of misfits that bristle under their restraints and forced duties. Interesting character snippets Fiffe shows us here, probably lots to mine here later, and maybe the adventures that led to this were weird, cryptic and juicy.
Issues 8 & 9 are better - unique art style, far more action, a few unique character designs, and a good job of not relying on heavy exposition to carry the story. The actual plots are interesting and they have faint touches of early-Warren-Ellis or -Grant-Morrison mind-boggling stuff, but aren't strong enough to really stand up to comparison.
I think there's some character depth in there - seeing the shades of grey and compromised decisions being made - but I found it hard to follow who was thinking/narrating a couple of times so it took some of the strength away for me. I bet this aspect of the series gets better on a re-read.
As frustrated as I sound by the gap between what I expected and what I experienced, I'm hoping that the start of this series carries the ball for the hype it's received, and maybe this was just a temporary aberration of conventional character study and slightly-less-weird than before. I'll try to order Compendium One (it's currently sold out), and may end up revising my opinion here later. (It's been known to happen, for as much of an opinionated dick as I can be.)
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews