Jinx

There is a scene in JINX (and this gives nothing away) in which writer/artist Brian Michael Bendis deviates from the plot to show us people in an arcade talking. These aren't central characters - a few of them are walk-ons to The Story, and some of them are extras who are hardly seen again. Very little of what they say has anything to do - even tangentially - with the plot. So for 19 pages, background actors are given the chance to tell their stories, their thoughts, their dreams. Brian Michael Bendis is certainly not the first writer to have an idea for the back story for every one-line character who appears - almost every hack sci-fi writer is at least that obsessive, if not more so. The difference is, Bendis' background tangent isn't merely fanboyish wankery. When Bendis' background characters talk, their stories are INTERESTING. They are funny, they are layered, they are compelling, and there is far more to them than the characters say. After 19 pages, you find yourself wishing not that Bendis had avoided delaying the story, but that you could spend another 19 pages with these extras. In fact, what Bendis DOESN'T give you is the real genius of JINX. It is a masterpiece, a five-star treasure, a genuine thrill from beginning to end. It is one of those books you finish and wish it had gone on for another 100 pages or more. (Perhaps Bendis feels the same, which is why THE DEFINITIVE COLLECTION contains almost two comics' worth of appendices and additional material.) Bendis' characters don't just ACT. They BREATHE. They pop off the pages and sing and dance and move. One of the reasons the book feels like it should be longer is because - for all their flaws - you find yourself not wanting to say good-bye to Goldfish and Jinx and, yes, even Columbia. Bendis may also be the only writer other than Quentin Tarantino who can give characters pages of dialogue about the comparitive merits of letterboxing in films without sounding like a bad rip-off of Quentin Tarantino. There is something else that Bendis can do that no other comics creator can. (Or, at the very least, no other writer has tried.) Bendis can draw scenes in such a way that the LESS you see, the more involved into the scene you become. His shadows have weight, meaning, a life all their own. Like Spider-Man's black costume, they seem to move and ooze, following their own laws of physics. Within a few pages, the shadows have become not something to HIDE the action, but rather, the audience's eyes into the scene. If I re-read JINX a thousand times, I doubt I would ever determine how it is that he somehow makes the audience feel more intimately involved in a scene when it is drenched in shadow than when it is flooded with light. This is a conscious decision on Bendis' part. He is capable of the clean line drawings of Sal Buscema - and he proves it in one scene - or the moody pseudo-realism of Bernie Wrightson or the abstract solidness of Dave Gibbons. He CHOOSES not to draw JINX this way. Wh

If you enjoy Brian Michael Bendis's prose then you will like this work. In tone, it is much more similar to Powers and Alias than his more recent Marvel work. The illustrations are often done with xeroxography (xeroxing pictures), which is quite distracting and detracts from the story, but I doubt he could have published the story without it. The primary characters, Jinx and Goldfish, are both interesting and textured. Jinx is a bounty hunter who has been beaten down by life, and is a precursor to Jessica Jones. Jinx is a small time con man in Cleveland who makes bad people choices. The over story and under story meet in nice confluence that enriches the reader's experience.

Brian Michael Bendis is probably today's most successful comic writer. At the very least, he's the most visible, penning a slew of high profile titles for Marvel and practically guiding the core Marvel Universe single-handedly, even while he continues to write the critically acclaimed Powers series. But Bendis didn't get his start with superhero comics. His first truly notable work - and some, including myself, would argue his very best work - is right here in crime comics like Jinx. This, when set alongside Goldfish and Torso, make for an impressive body of noirish crime fiction which proves that, like his Marvel work or not, Bendis is the real deal. Here we have a story about three people - a bald, stupid young crook; a young grifter who wants out of the crime life; and the bounty hunter woman he falls in love with - who are chasing after a hefty payday right within their grasp ... if they can work together without killing one another, that is. If Quentin Tarrantino filmed his movies with 1940s technology, they'd look like this. Jinx may have been originally published as a comic series, but make no mistake, this is a graphic novel in the truest sense of the word. It's dense with dialogue and plot, rich with characters, and is just BEGGING to be on the big screen. Bendis' artwork (that's right, folks, Bendis used to draw) is moody and full of shadows. His page layouts are bold and dynamic. Sure, he does a poor job showing action, leaving the reader confused until the text clears up what they just saw, but that's a minor niggle, since most of the action here is made up of intra-character interplay. And that interplay is a joy to read. Bendis sometimes pushes it a bit too far, trying too hard to make the conversations seem real by inserting dozens of pauses and repeated words, but by and large this Mamet-lifted style sings, flies off the pages, and engages. You can hear these people chatting clear and a bell. Wonderful. As mentioned earlier, when set next to Goldfish (a sort of sequel to Jinx) and Torso, Bendis' early body of work is highly impressive and highly readable. You can't go wrong with any of the three. If you like crime fiction especially, this is a must read.

With Jinx, creator Brian Michael Bendis returns to familiar territory- street-level crime fiction. He also returns to his popular character Goldfish, who previously starred in his own graphic novel, appropriately titled Goldfish. Jinx is a prequel of sorts to Goldfish. David "Goldfish" Gold, a petty grifter, is plying his trade with his sleazeball crony Columbia, when they are almost run over by a car containing 2 dying thugs- before they die, though, they pass along a tip about a hidden stash of loot...$3,000,000.00, to be exact. The problem is, Goldfish was told the location of the loot, Columbia was told the name it's stored under. So they're going to have to play nice to get the cash. Then along comes "Jinx" Alameda, a female bounty hunter looking to get enough cash to leave her sordid job behind. Goldfish and Jinx fall for each other, Columbia decides he doesn't want to share, the REAL owner of the cash comes looking for it....you can just feel the trouble brewing...... The story is well-told, and the book itself is HUGE; a tremendous value for your money. I loved the way that Bendis told the stories of the bystanders at the Arcade. It really made the scene take on more urgency by turning the onlookers into real people, as opposed to potential victims. Jinx is a great character; one of the most fully-developed females in comics, and I loved the dialogue- it's really Bendis' strong suit. The bad...? The same as all of Bendis' other collections- POOR PRODUCTION VALUES. The introduction to the book has the usual transposed pages, a trademark of Bendis. There is also the typical mind-boggling array of misspelled words throughout the book. Bendis seriously needs an editor, and his wife just ain't cutting it. You'd probably want to read Goldfish first- It'll make the ending easier to follow. And check out Torso, also by Bendis. It's amazing!

9-12?? if i had read this back then i would had probably snapped. this b & w comic book tells an incredible crime fiction story in a way no other comic has ever told one. bendis human-models based noir penciling and amazing, hyper-realistic dialogues are sure to be remembered and imitated. yet, i would read bendis' first work on this comic main character before sinking my teeth into this one, goldfish (i haven't yet read it, but i think it improves the reading of jinx -especially its end, which i'm obviously not telling-).