Fittingly recorded on Jan. 6th 2025, Phillip and I break down Bendis and Maleev’s Scarlet, a comic made in 2010 by a middle-aged white guy from suburban Ohio that eerily resembled the protests and anti-establishment sentiment in the decade to follow.
Some highlights of the comic we talk about below:
First, a truly stand-out exposition sequence where as something as basic and necessary as introducing a character’s backstory but told visually.
At first glance, it just looks like fifteen panels in a no-frills nine-panel layout. But it’s actually fifteen snapshots of the defining moments and characteristics in Scarlet’s life to date. Note the last panel of a Portland landmark, which breaks the established rhythm, is enlarged to emphasize the most telling quality about her.
Exposition delivered as only a comic can do.
Being a Bendis book, it bears his signature dialogue-filled pages. Phillip and I debate a little about the effectiveness of it in this comic, particularly with this page below. It’s a good example of knowing when to break the rules of effective comic storytelling, since a sequence of zero dialogue precedes it, then slowly building up to a wordy but necessary scene of Scarlet being told about the blue wall of silence in the police department. Don’t try this shit at home kids.
Finally, just some great use of color from Maleev in this book. No need to bog it down with explanation, it speaks for itself.
Overall, I was pretty surprised at how well this book held up considering the changes in the political landscape since its initial publication since I was expecting it to fall into the trap of West Wing-styled, PMC neoliberal naivete that plagues most of the successful comic creators in this publishing space (see our retrospective on Brian K. Vaughn’s Ex Machina). Highly recommend picking this series up where you can.
Our next post: Phillip and I cover the new 52 Wonder Woman by Brian Azarello and Cliff Chiang!
Signing off,
Eric
Share this post