[.ca] Hopeless Savages Volume 2: Ground Zero (ISBN 192999852X)

Disappointing compared to original:
In the oiginal "Hopeless Savages," Zero was an annoying character. In "Ground Zero," her annoyingness has been toned down, but she's in it constantly, which negates this, making her just as annoying as ever. For a teen-romance-ish kind of thing, this isn't bad, but after reading the sublime original series, this isn't doing it for me. The problem is that in the last one, the main character was the family's punk history biting them in the ass, complete with flashbacks galore. Now Zero's the main character and it's just telling her little story, and it's like she just happens to live with punks. I like this O'Malley dude's art, but not for Hopeless Savages. Christie Norrie was a much better match (she would especially be for this installments romance manga-ish flavour). One more fault: Zero says "squalling" way too much. I've known Brits and lotsa punks and NO ONE says SQUALLING! Oh yeah, and the "Rat = hardcore, Arsenal = goth, Twitch = mod, Zero = old school" thing was totally thrown off by this new guy putting the wrong posters in Zero's room. I know these are minor criticisms, but the tone is just all wrong compared to the last one. I do applaud Van Meter for making Twitch an unstereotyped (...) guy.

Just to keep this simple...:
This is a beautiful story told with wonderful art.

Hey punka!:
Written by: Jen Van Meter with Art by: Bryan O' Malley and featuring art by: Andi Watson, Christine & Catherine Norrie, Chynna Clugston-Major with cover art by Terry Dodson. In this chapter of Hopeless Savages we find Skank Zero faced with the daunting task of balancing fame, love, music, school and family, while being hounded by a film crew bent on ruining her life. I thought that the series took a serious step forward in ground zero, the drastic art change by Bryan o' Malley was a pleasant surprise and the flashbacks by Chynna Clugston-Major are some of her best works yet. There's enough punk flavor in here to satisfy Sid Vicious himself, Ground zero is a must have for any hopeless savage fan. -Lucas Eves

Better than the Osbournes!:
I bought this book on a whim last week and damn did I love it! The adventures of a family of british rock stars sounds like a familiar idea now, but I wish i could find ANYTHING on television that had me this fascinated. The shining jewel of this book is the dazzling art of newcomer Bryan Lee O'Malley. It's very stylized and cartoonish, but brilliantly poigniant. I've re-read it four times this week and I still find beautiful little nuggests in the script or art that I hadn't noticed before. Definitely one of my favorite recent graphic novels.