How Did I Miss This?

Every once in a while, a comic comes along that it is perfectly suited to your tastes. It hits all the right buttons for you - the subject matter aligns with stuff you enjoy reading about; the tone and aesthetic of the book is one you enjoy immensely; the artist might as well have been sitting next to you asking, "Hey, buddy, what would you like to see me draw today?" And sometimes, when such a comic comes along, you completely miss out on it until years later, at which point you kick yourself for not reading it, living it, breathing it, and pushing it in the faces of anyone who will listen, all along.

Well, that happened to me recently, when I picked up some old issues of Darkhawk from a quarter bin..... No, seriously, it happened when I finally got around to reading the first (and as far as I know, only) trade of Casanova, by Matt Fraction and Gabriel Ba'. I had read some of Fraction's Marvel work, and I had seen Ba's art on Umbrella Academy, but man, this book blew me away from the opening page.

The conceit is this: Casanova Quinn and his twin sister Zephyr Quinn are involved in all sorts of crazy, psychedelic, hedonistic spy intrigue involving travel between parallel timelines, work as double and triple agents, sex-toy robots, transcendental meditation, people getting murdered for not like the Beatles (a particularly satisfying scene for this fan of the Fab Four), pop-star assassins, and lots of other completely insane and unbelievably awesome stuff thrown in for good measure. Casanova is a double agent working for both his father, who is head of the world police agency E.M.P.I.R.E., and for W.A.S.T.E., which is E.M.P.I.R.E.'s evil foil.

The book is packed with action and ideas - most of the stories are only sixteen pages long, and more happens in each chapter than in six months of your average mainstream superhero book. Casanova owes a lot to both Michael Moorcock's Jerry Cornelius stories and novels, and Steranko's Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. (one of the characters working for E.M.P.I.R.E. basically is Dum Dum Dugan), but its still its own animal, and stands up well whether or not you're familiar with any of that material.

Fraction's Casanova changes his allegiances, and the status quo of the book, almost as often as most people change their underwear. You'll spend more time absorbing the goings-on on each page, usually in wide-eyed delight, than you might spend reading some full comics. Aside from the constant barrage of action, what comes through the most is that Fraction is having fun with this. There is a level of playfullness that is truly infectious - the knowing swipes at comics as a genre, pop music, and tropes of the spy genre and '60s psychedelia always fit snugly within the narrative and only enhance the story elements.

And the art - I enjoyed Ba' on Umbrella Academy, but I love his work on Casanova. Its stylish, sexy, fluid and distinctive without ever being confusing or stilted. It is in black and white, but the book also employs a green tone (and purple on a single page, to very interesting effect) in order to give the art even more depth and character. Casanova Volume 1 comes with my highest recommendation, whatever that's worth. I hope I never miss out on anything this good again.