It’s a baaad day indeed for DC Comics’ The Penguin. #1 of the title gives us a sad pitiful Penguin, one that is plum dejected, broke, and shunned. Living in his own private Idaho-Antarctica, a dismissal of his own making.
Novelist and director John Ridley pens a long and flightless story of The Penguin, wayyy down in the pecking order of life. A villain with no street cred, no friends, or birds of a feather. It flocking suks, amiright?
You see, The Umbrella Man has kicked The Penquin to the curb and stolen his fish, cancelled his standing, robbed of his money and his pride. Tsk Tsk. And now, Penguin must pick himself up, dust himself off, and start all over again. Make friends, do things for others, all that distasteful stuff.
Ridley delivers a solid script, but again, I find it wordy and dogmatic. It delivers your food but insists on describing the journey; every stoplight, every bump on the road to the customer’s door. Editor is Dave Wielgosz.
Guiseppe Camuncoli provides good layouts, with all finishes provided by Cam Smith, who apparently “finishes” pencils, inks, and colour! Smith’s modelling of light on the faces is particularly good, giving Camuncoli’s heavy linework a nice 3D quality.
Letters are by Rob Leigh.
A good read, if overly wordy and strangely lacking in suspense due to the length of the scenes, the pacing. But strong concepts and ideas.
DC Comics, One Bad Day, Penguin #1. $7.99 for 67 pages of content.
Newsdesk