This week on View from the Gutters our topic work is RASL, by Jeff Smith. It is the story of a reality hopping art-thief and scientist, on the run from government agents who want to turn his research into weapons.
Smith is a master cartoonist who effortlessly blends action, mystery, fantasy, and humor. Readers may be familiar with his prior work, the fantasy epic Bone, and RASL lives up to whatever expectations that previous work may have set for it, albeit in a much shorter form, and aimed at a more adult audience.
The artwork is incredibly compelling, as Smith once again demonstrates his skill at rendering action on the page, supplemented with great design work and an expert eye for panel layouts. Although the series clocks in at a modest 15 issues, it reads fast as you are immediately drawn into the story and world that Smith creates.
In our recommendation section, our hosts nominated Green Arrow: Quiver, Rat Queens, The Sword, and Fell for discussion on the next episode, and our selected title is The Sword.
Our hosts for this episode were Andrew Chard, Joe Preti, Tobiah Panshin, and Cade Reynolds.
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Hey guys love the podcast. Just a suggestion for future reads… How about sonething by Matt Kindt? Maybe the first two trades of Mind MGMT or his OGN Red Handed? Might be interesting to hear you talk about some of the good New 52 stuff like Batman or Soule’s Swamp Thing?
Thanks for the suggestion, John. I haven’t read anything by Kindt myself, but I’ll pass the suggestion along. It’s always good to expand our horizons and talk about things we’re not familiar with.
As I’m sure you’ve noticed the New-52 is a point of some contention, but I know that Court of Owls was pitched before. I have a feeling that we might be edging up to one, and if no one else does, I may pitch Wonder Woman once Azzarello’s run finally concludes. So stay tuned on that front.