Wednesday, June 11, 2008

San Antonio Spurs...Readers to Check Out Twilight Guardian

Here's a nice piece from Jeremy Martin at the San Antonio Current:

The Twilight Guardian, an anonymous loser pretending at superherodom, patrols well-trod territory, but Hickman’s (Common Grounds) skill at character development sets this series apart. So far, anyway. The story, told through terse, personal journal entries, is largely uneventful, but the protagonist, a lonely girl patrolling her suburban neighborhood for evildoers, is compelling and sympathetic. The issue occasionally falters when Hickman attempts a Tick-like mockery of the Guardian’s misguided sense of “justice,” but the endearing attempts of the main character to escape her failed relationship and mundane existence as a dry cleaner by mimicking her favorite comic-book characters makes Twilight Guardian worth reading. Her late-night prowling leads only to the discovery of misdemeanors — teenagers making out in a parked car, a man urinating in his neighbor’s flower bed — but also to other lonely people acquainted with the night: a woman continously watching the same monster movie, a man shooting baskets until his love returns. And it’s this secret knowledge of the friendless people without purpose that gives Twilight Guardian a meaningful voice. Though misguided and ineffective superheroes are standard fare in comic books, Twilight Guardian’s underlying concept — becoming a superhero as a distraction from the isolation of modern-day young adulthood — is novel and at times even heart-defrosting.

2 comments:

Juggling Jason said...

Hmph! The justice thing was one of my favorite parts. :(

Smart review nonetheless. Good to see people propping up the book.

Troy Hickman said...

Yeah, I bristled a bit at that, too. The Tick, while a great comic and cartoon, was poking fun of the main character. There's humor in TG, but I tried not to make any of it at her expense.

But hey, close enough for jazz!