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Pearl #7-12
Pearl, Volume 2
The masterful saga of art, crime, loyalty, and passion by NYT bestselling, Peabody, and multi-Eisner award-winning writer Brian Michael Bendis (Superman) and superstar Jessica Jones co-creator Michael Gaydos continues!
Pearl Tanaka's boss, the malevolent Mr. Miike, used to think that she was merely a highly successful tattoo artist. But now that he knows about her gift for killing, he wants to put her deadly talents to use in service of his criminal empire. Pearl, however, has just learned some very interesting things about her late mother--and now she has a completely different career path in mind.
As she travels to Japan to uncover the secrets of her heritage, Pearl hopes that by confronting Mr. Miike's boss on his home turf she can get her father freed from jail, keep her fellow tattoo artist and wannabe boyfriend Rick Araki safe, and take control of her destiny for the very first time. It doesn't work out the way she planned...
Collects Pearl #7-12.
Pearl Tanaka's boss, the malevolent Mr. Miike, used to think that she was merely a highly successful tattoo artist. But now that he knows about her gift for killing, he wants to put her deadly talents to use in service of his criminal empire. Pearl, however, has just learned some very interesting things about her late mother--and now she has a completely different career path in mind.
As she travels to Japan to uncover the secrets of her heritage, Pearl hopes that by confronting Mr. Miike's boss on his home turf she can get her father freed from jail, keep her fellow tattoo artist and wannabe boyfriend Rick Araki safe, and take control of her destiny for the very first time. It doesn't work out the way she planned...
Collects Pearl #7-12.
176 pages, Paperback
First published December 17, 2019
About the author
Brian Michael Bendis
4,420 books2,625 followersA comic book writer and erstwhile artist. He has won critical acclaim (including five Eisner Awards) and is one of the most successful writers working in mainstream comics. For over eight years Bendis’s books have consistently sat in the top five best sellers on the nationwide comic and graphic novel sales charts.
Though he started as a writer and artist of independent noir fiction series, he shot to stardom as a writer of Marvel Comics' superhero books, particularly Ultimate Spider-Man.
Bendis first entered the comic world with the "Jinx" line of crime comics in 1995. This line has spawned the graphic novels Goldfish, Fire, Jinx, Torso (with Marc Andreyko), and Total Sell Out. Bendis is writing the film version of Jinx for Universal Pictures with Oscar-winner Charlize Theron attached to star and produce.
Bendis’s other projects include the Harvey, Eisner, and Eagle Award-nominated Powers (with Michael Avon Oeming) originally from Image Comics, now published by Marvel's new creator-owned imprint Icon Comics, and the Hollywood tell-all Fortune and Glory from Oni Press, both of which received an "A" from Entertainment Weekly.
Bendis is one of the premiere architects of Marvel's "Ultimate" line: comics specifically created for the new generation of comic readers. He has written every issue of Ultimate Spider-Man since its best-selling launch, and has also written for Ultimate Fantastic Four and Ultimate X-Men, as well as every issue of Ultimate Marvel Team-Up, Ultimate Origin and Ultimate Six.
Brian is currently helming a renaissance for Marvel’s AVENGERS franchise by writing both New Avengers and Mighty Avengers along with the successful ‘event’ projects House Of M, Secret War, and this summer’s Secret Invasion.
He has also previously done work on Daredevil, Alias, and The Pulse.
Though he started as a writer and artist of independent noir fiction series, he shot to stardom as a writer of Marvel Comics' superhero books, particularly Ultimate Spider-Man.
Bendis first entered the comic world with the "Jinx" line of crime comics in 1995. This line has spawned the graphic novels Goldfish, Fire, Jinx, Torso (with Marc Andreyko), and Total Sell Out. Bendis is writing the film version of Jinx for Universal Pictures with Oscar-winner Charlize Theron attached to star and produce.
Bendis’s other projects include the Harvey, Eisner, and Eagle Award-nominated Powers (with Michael Avon Oeming) originally from Image Comics, now published by Marvel's new creator-owned imprint Icon Comics, and the Hollywood tell-all Fortune and Glory from Oni Press, both of which received an "A" from Entertainment Weekly.
Bendis is one of the premiere architects of Marvel's "Ultimate" line: comics specifically created for the new generation of comic readers. He has written every issue of Ultimate Spider-Man since its best-selling launch, and has also written for Ultimate Fantastic Four and Ultimate X-Men, as well as every issue of Ultimate Marvel Team-Up, Ultimate Origin and Ultimate Six.
Brian is currently helming a renaissance for Marvel’s AVENGERS franchise by writing both New Avengers and Mighty Avengers along with the successful ‘event’ projects House Of M, Secret War, and this summer’s Secret Invasion.
He has also previously done work on Daredevil, Alias, and The Pulse.
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 35 reviews
October 6, 2022
American-Japanese Albino tattoo artist Pearl, and her sort of boyfriend from another gang have ruffled the feathers of, to name a few, various Yakuza families, her parents' past, San Francisco's top pornographers, the FBI and now maybe even the entire Japanese nation!
Another sweet Bendis-Gaydos jam, as they take San Francisco, Yakuza, tattoos, family and olde worlde vs new world generations, and mix them up in to a nice potpourri of a story. It's the lack of solid characterisations and mannerisms of some of the key characters that prevent this reaching Marvel's Jessica Jones status, although the Endo Twins... I want more of
A strong Four Star, 8.5 out of 12 read.
2019 read
Another sweet Bendis-Gaydos jam, as they take San Francisco, Yakuza, tattoos, family and olde worlde vs new world generations, and mix them up in to a nice potpourri of a story. It's the lack of solid characterisations and mannerisms of some of the key characters that prevent this reaching Marvel's Jessica Jones status, although the Endo Twins... I want more of
A strong Four Star, 8.5 out of 12 read.
2019 read
January 7, 2020
Pearl heads to Japan to iron out any misunderstandings with the Yakusa and meet her family. Some of this was too nuanced for me. Things would happen in the book and I'd find myself flipping back to see if I missed something. The end felt very rushed. Almost as if the series was canceled rushed.
Gaydos art looked photorealistic in places. I'm not sure if he's using models and then painting over the pictures. A lot of the art is really static. Overall, this was just OK. It didn't wow me like a lot of Bendis's work does.
Gaydos art looked photorealistic in places. I'm not sure if he's using models and then painting over the pictures. A lot of the art is really static. Overall, this was just OK. It didn't wow me like a lot of Bendis's work does.
October 30, 2022
So all this was about nepotism? A young woman's family gives her a job? So pointless.
Events in the story just got increasingly random as it progressed (regressed?) like they were generated by dice rolls or an A.I.
And if a major part of your book is that one character has albinism, how little sense does it make to color everything purple, pink, blue, and green -- everything except actual skin tones??
And what happened to the editing? Some of the dialogue made little to no sense and two characters' names randomly changed, from Kimmy to Kimmi and Niko to Nico.
Somehow, they're making a third volume of this mess, but I don't expect I'll be back for that.
Events in the story just got increasingly random as it progressed (regressed?) like they were generated by dice rolls or an A.I.
And if a major part of your book is that one character has albinism, how little sense does it make to color everything purple, pink, blue, and green -- everything except actual skin tones??
And what happened to the editing? Some of the dialogue made little to no sense and two characters' names randomly changed, from Kimmy to Kimmi and Niko to Nico.
Somehow, they're making a third volume of this mess, but I don't expect I'll be back for that.
September 7, 2019
Still just ho-hum, though slightly better than the first volume. Sometimes Gaydos' art is really nice to look at, but also in the back of my head I wonder if you couldn't pull off the same effects with a customized Instagram filter. Some of it looks rotoscoped. And his models are not expressive enough. They aren't moving. He should photograph them as they move. Story-wise, Pearl takes power yadda yadda. Why anybody respects her is a mystery. Where she gets her gun skills is a mystery. The Endo twins aren't particularly funny and seem to be insipid so why are they even here? They're never shown to be a credible threat. Justify them as characters in your story and in the world they occupy. The FBI lady was a non-starter. Feels like they just forgot about her and ran out of space. Anyway things seem mighty convenient.
March 11, 2021
The art is still breathtaking, but the storyline feels somewhat clunky. I will take a break and perhaps come back to the third volume with fresh eyes later on.
February 29, 2020
Bendis takes
Pearl
away from tattoo in volume two and pretty far down the yakuzahole.
The art is wonderful to look at and used in interesting ways (eg car driving down a map rather than a highway) but it has a tendency to stray into annoyingly abstract vagueness.
I was disappointed at the plot drift towards gangsterism as that's been done a million times before and the tattoo stuff felt fresh. But I'll enjoy anything with Bendis's sterling conversational gymnastics.
Plot points:
The art is wonderful to look at and used in interesting ways (eg car driving down a map rather than a highway) but it has a tendency to stray into annoyingly abstract vagueness.
I was disappointed at the plot drift towards gangsterism as that's been done a million times before and the tattoo stuff felt fresh. But I'll enjoy anything with Bendis's sterling conversational gymnastics.
Plot points:
May 6, 2020
V2 of Pearl is certainly more pragmatic than the original. Whereas V1 felt mysterious, like we were being dumped head-first into an unknown world, V2 is all about tying up all the loose ends of that first volume.
Bendis' characters are as strong as ever, and though he perhaps depends a little too much on out-of-chronology storytelling, it must be said that it's almost always a successful technique. (Similarly, he perhaps depends too much on pages and pages of just people talking: but he makes that interesting too.)
My only particular complaint of V2 is that we get five and three-quarters issues of nice sequel to V1, and then we get a very sudden ending that feels sort of like it came out of nowhere. So: closure, sure, but not necessarily satisfying closure. But it's still an enjoyable second (and one has to presume final) volume.
Bendis' characters are as strong as ever, and though he perhaps depends a little too much on out-of-chronology storytelling, it must be said that it's almost always a successful technique. (Similarly, he perhaps depends too much on pages and pages of just people talking: but he makes that interesting too.)
My only particular complaint of V2 is that we get five and three-quarters issues of nice sequel to V1, and then we get a very sudden ending that feels sort of like it came out of nowhere. So: closure, sure, but not necessarily satisfying closure. But it's still an enjoyable second (and one has to presume final) volume.
June 20, 2025
Ce deuxième volume de Pearl continue d’éblouir par ses planches saturées de couleurs, dont on ne sait jamais tout à fait si elles relèvent de la peinture, de la photo retravaillée ou du dessin pur. C’est sans doute l’un des rares griefs que l’on pourrait adresser au travail de Michael Gaydos : ses personnages paraissent souvent trop statiques, figés — y compris dans les scènes d’action grandioses, à la John Wick, qui composent le dernier quart du volume. Ces plans juxtaposés, parfois reproduits à l’identique, donnent par moments une étrange impression de roman-photo.
Il n’empêche : l’inventivité formelle demeure étourdissante. Les séquences de trajets en voiture — souvent relevées dans d'autres critiques — en sont un exemple éclatant. L’ancrage contemporain est quant à lui brillamment rendu, à travers des éléments tels que le vlog de Rick ou les échanges de textos qui traversent tout le Pacifique.
Certaines planches laissent véritablement sans voix, notamment celles où Pearl dévoile son tatouage, affleurant à la surface de sa peau laiteuse d’albinos, comme convoqué par l’émotion.
L’écriture de Brian Michael Bendis est, ici, à la hauteur des très grands. On pense inévitablement à Brian K. Vaughan, tant pour la caractérisation des personnages que pour la fluidité touchante des dialogues. Les jumeaux Endo, ou encore la relation entre Pearl et Rick, suffiraient à faire pâlir d’envie bien des scénaristes de séries télévisées. Les phylactères portent tour à tour la tendresse des amants et la cocasserie des répliques des yakuza, dans un équilibre délicat mais parfaitement maîtrisé.
À cet égard, le pari — un peu fou, un peu naïf — de revisiter un genre codifié est ici pleinement réussi.
Il n’empêche : l’inventivité formelle demeure étourdissante. Les séquences de trajets en voiture — souvent relevées dans d'autres critiques — en sont un exemple éclatant. L’ancrage contemporain est quant à lui brillamment rendu, à travers des éléments tels que le vlog de Rick ou les échanges de textos qui traversent tout le Pacifique.
Certaines planches laissent véritablement sans voix, notamment celles où Pearl dévoile son tatouage, affleurant à la surface de sa peau laiteuse d’albinos, comme convoqué par l’émotion.
L’écriture de Brian Michael Bendis est, ici, à la hauteur des très grands. On pense inévitablement à Brian K. Vaughan, tant pour la caractérisation des personnages que pour la fluidité touchante des dialogues. Les jumeaux Endo, ou encore la relation entre Pearl et Rick, suffiraient à faire pâlir d’envie bien des scénaristes de séries télévisées. Les phylactères portent tour à tour la tendresse des amants et la cocasserie des répliques des yakuza, dans un équilibre délicat mais parfaitement maîtrisé.
À cet égard, le pari — un peu fou, un peu naïf — de revisiter un genre codifié est ici pleinement réussi.
October 3, 2020
I'm loving this series. Great artwork and good characters. I love seeing an Asian woman lead role and I like her relationship to the other women in the series as well as how she is with her boyfriend.
March 1, 2021
Volume 2 had a lot more action going on with existing characters getting more personality and new ones being introduced in a very cool way. Giving it 4 stars as I rather enjoyed it a lot and I feel that it has stepped up it's game compared to the first volume.
August 5, 2020
I continued with this comic just because it only has the 2 volumes and I'm a completionist. The second half of this story was similarly meh as the first, although perhaps a bit better. The color palette mellowed out a bit and wasn't as jarring. However, the art style is just not my cup of tea at all. It continues to be a series of snapshot showing characters frozen in place, even when the dialogue is sometimes using like three explanation points, the image of the character is this serene close-up with the mouth closed even. I just don't get it and I don't like it.
The story also meanders a bit confusingly again, dropping characters in completely new surroundings without explanation and only like some pages later showing a flashback that shows how they ended up there. Pearl's love interest continues to be useless and pointless. I pretty much only read this story to learn Pearl's backstory and I did, I guess. But I finished this comic a couple weeks ago and I actually can no longer remember how it ends? I don't even care enough to go and look it up. I think maybe
The story also meanders a bit confusingly again, dropping characters in completely new surroundings without explanation and only like some pages later showing a flashback that shows how they ended up there. Pearl's love interest continues to be useless and pointless. I pretty much only read this story to learn Pearl's backstory and I did, I guess. But I finished this comic a couple weeks ago and I actually can no longer remember how it ends? I don't even care enough to go and look it up. I think maybe
February 19, 2024
3.75 stars. This was better than Vol. 1, but Pearl does not seem destined to be among Bendis's best work still. The good news is that the storytelling has less jumping around and is pretty easy to follow this time. The art is still the main reason to read Pearl as well. Its just as stunning as the first volume. With that said, this series is just lacking in some kind of hook or something to make it a more gripping read. Pearl's boyfriend is still kind of annoying and the Endo Twins could be a villain in nearly anything Bendis has written. I don't know if the Yakuza or tattoo elements of the story really work either. I think Bendis took some chances in writing this but ultimately, this series is turning out to be a pretty average read which is not something I associate with his creator owned work.
July 21, 2022
The second volume of the beautifully painted series by Michael Gaydos and Brian Michael Bendis gets better. I liked this volume better than the first. I thought it flowed much better and had more humor. Here Pearl takes control of her life in glorious fashion. As stated, the book has breath-taking visuals. Gaydos is a star. Bendis' plot is entertaining and the script is perfect. I would've liked to see more of Pearl's inner thoughts as she's dealing with so much. Overall, a very good read.
January 11, 2021
The art is interesting enough—the colors are great but the characters lack emotional expression in key panels. The story line is okay. It’s not amazing but the ending gives the story some depth, making it an okay journey from start to finish. The dialogue and art both could have been stronger and are a let down after Jessica Jones. Overall, if you liked Jessica Jones, it might be worth the read solely because it’s the same creative team but it doesn’t rival it by any means.
May 26, 2021
There is some fantastic artwork here. I definitely noticed echoes of the Alias, Vol. 1 series that missed in the first volume (because I hadn't read Alias at the time).
May 30, 2022
Wrapping up the series in a not terribly convincing or satisfactory way. Is Pearl a badass and ruthless murderer or a lovelorn tattooist just trying to express herself through her art? Is she all about the sappy snark with her bestie or chopping off the fingers of a guy that lied to her? It's all just a little silly. Still I'm pleased it's done and pleased that I have the whole thing from first to last even if it isn't as successful as I might have hoped.
May 12, 2024
4.5 really. Significantly better than the first volume. The art is much more assured, much more interesting, and clarifies rather than muddles the action. The writing also is better and the story more coherent. There are occasional flights of fancy - Pearl the surprise ninja assassin - but its a comic! Very good, though I'm not sure how much more of Pearl's story I'm interested in. I'll go on to the next.
April 8, 2020
Public library copy.
I enjoyed this volume almost as much as the prior one. Despite some awkward time line transitions and confusing in-panel moments--I mean maybe it made sense between the author and artist but not with this reader -- I thought this series was another outstanding work by Bendis and Gaydos. I could totally imagine this work captured in the style of a John Wick movie.
I enjoyed this volume almost as much as the prior one. Despite some awkward time line transitions and confusing in-panel moments--I mean maybe it made sense between the author and artist but not with this reader -- I thought this series was another outstanding work by Bendis and Gaydos. I could totally imagine this work captured in the style of a John Wick movie.
November 25, 2020
Honestly this wasn't as good as the first one. The dramatic tension during action scenes is missing. Pearl is TOO much of a bad ass. While it's interesting to hear about some of the back story, it isn't as impactful as the secrets revealed during the first one.
March 22, 2021
This story has been great. As much as I love Bendis' superhero work, his creator owned work is always interesting and fun. Not sure how I feel on Gaydos' art, it feels like he is outlining photos, which he could be doing.
July 6, 2021
The somewhat cheesy and altogether too-positive happy ending of the three gleefully bringing their lives as the new Yakuza clan under Pearl felt totally unrealistic but also sweet enough that I was willing to let it slide.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 31, 2019
Better than volume 1, but do I care enough to get to volume 3?
January 19, 2020
I think I liked this volume a bit more than first because I have learned about this world more...gritty crime drama.
February 17, 2020
Graphic novel perfection
March 26, 2020
Not quite as good as the first, but I am still very much in love.
October 21, 2020
Eh, I gave up interest in any character.
November 3, 2020
I liked the snappy dialog here. The characters really started coming into their own. Great art.
January 23, 2021
More of the same from the first volume. The ending was too Hollywood.
May 12, 2022
Great art, interesting story with a great hook. Really appreciating this series.
August 12, 2022
I'm so sick of repetitious art when it's not a bit
Displaying 1 - 30 of 35 reviews