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Se7en #1

By Al Kratina
January 29, 2007 - 22:27

 

 
It would be an understatement to say that the film Se7en was smothered in art-direction like biscuits in gravy or, perhaps more accurately given the grim and murderous plot line of the movie, like an bed-ridden senior with a pillow. The credit sequence alone has probably been passed around among video-editors, rivet-heads, and film school nerds more often than clap in a cathouse, to use another metaphor that continues the theme of sin and righteous punishment. And the Se7en comic book, released by Zenescope Entertainment, continues that heavy reliance on aesthetic, but while the movie was able to combine the strong sense of visual style with the its strengths, the comic merely uses them to cover up its weaknesses.

 
Which is not to say that the comic book is a total failure. There are some interesting aspects not only to the visual style, but to the writing as well. For instance, while the film gave us a series of Biblically themed, judgemental murders from the point of view of the detectives investigating the crimes, the comic gives equal time to the perspectives of both the killer and his victims. Each issue is devoted to one of the 7 deadly sins, and therefore, one of the victims. It's an interesting companion to the film, though I'm not sure how well it would stand on its own. Interesting perspectives aside, the writing occasionally suffers from cliché. The first issue, Gluttony, is about the killer's stalking and subsequent murder of an obese man, whose stomach he bursts in a punishment that is equal parts Tales from the Crypt revenge and Dante's Inferno condemnation. Writer Raven Gregory alternates between the killer's point of view and the victim's, but both have their flaws. The fat man who eats because he's empty inside sounds more like a Dr. Phil tele-sermon than a realistic character, and the killer's voice-over narration gets bogged down in its own wordiness, as if he'd gone insane from reading a thesaurus. In fact, since most of the comic book is narrated through the internal monologues of the characters, it's important they each have their own distinct voices. And they do, it's just that they're each is so overstated and simplistic, they become almost self-parody.

 
The pencils are equally simple, beneath the muddy colors and layers of rain, dripping blood, and texture overlaid on every page. Read rapidly, it looks great, but underneath all of the flourishes lie some disappointingly basic illustrations. There are single panel pages that are meant to hit dramatic beats in the story, but they just end up seeming ham-handed and overdone. Still, the layering is effective, with the smeared browns and greys giving a diseased, leprous look to the panels, like drainage from a septic tank. The layouts are unsettling as well, the divisions between panels ragged and skewed, and some of the pages are inventively presented, like one that's modeled after pizza slices, or another that's all razor blade slashes dividing the images. The overall effect is dark and gritty, but still feels somewhat empty, and therefore less than successful.

 
But what does succeed is the design of the comic book itself, done by cover artist David Seldman. It's made to look like one of the notebooks found in the killer's apartment in the film, with even the disgustingly Clive Barker-inspired cover made to appear as it it's taped over the front of the notebook. For every few pages of comic, there's an insert from the notebook, and they're just as disturbing in the comic as they are in the film. Ultimately, while Se7en #1 doesn't really succeed as a self-contained comic series, it does have a few creepy flourishes, and would probably be a great supplement to a particularly sharp DVD edition.

 

Rating: 5 on 10

 

Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12