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jonh's review
3.0
I'm conflicted.
I really liked Fanboy when I was a kid. Heck, it was one of my favorite comics, and I endlessly checked it out from my local library. It's a clever, Walter Mitty-esque premise: Finster's a comic book-loving nerd, evades real-world consequences by imagining himself in the world of the comics he reads, thus confronting his problems on his turf and on his terms. But are these really just his fantasies, or is reality warping to teach him a valuable lesson? With his frequent asides to the reader, fact and fiction irrevocably blur, as we are treated to a wacky romp through the wonderful world of comics.
Pretty cool, right?
And it's still pretty cool, after multiple rereadings. But there's something about Fanboy that really bugs me. A few things, actually. The writing feels a little stale, the jokes are a little lame. The sequences of comics within comics are inventive but the conclusions Finster reaches by going through them just don't have the impact they used to. And Finster himself is a real jerkwad. That's part of the story, sure, but as I've gotten older, his character arc doesn't feel as redemptive. The stakes aren't as weighty as they were when I was a kid. And the payoff, for me at least, falls a little flat.
Also, how old are these characters supposed to be? Finster attends what appears to be a high school, but IS he in high school? There's this weird conflict between the racier and more innocent elements in this book, and I don't know if they entirely reconcile.
Then again, all this could come as a result of me having read Fanboy so many times. I like to think that a good read holds up no matter how many times you reread it, but maybe some don't. Maybe we just grow out of certain things, and they're still good, we're not better than them now, but we've moved on to something different, something more complicated. I'm not entirely sure.
In any case, Fanboy IS good, for what it is. What IT is, exactly, I'm not as sure anymore, but it's definitely worth a read, if only once.
I really liked Fanboy when I was a kid. Heck, it was one of my favorite comics, and I endlessly checked it out from my local library. It's a clever, Walter Mitty-esque premise: Finster's a comic book-loving nerd, evades real-world consequences by imagining himself in the world of the comics he reads, thus confronting his problems on his turf and on his terms. But are these really just his fantasies, or is reality warping to teach him a valuable lesson? With his frequent asides to the reader, fact and fiction irrevocably blur, as we are treated to a wacky romp through the wonderful world of comics.
Pretty cool, right?
And it's still pretty cool, after multiple rereadings. But there's something about Fanboy that really bugs me. A few things, actually. The writing feels a little stale, the jokes are a little lame. The sequences of comics within comics are inventive but the conclusions Finster reaches by going through them just don't have the impact they used to. And Finster himself is a real jerkwad. That's part of the story, sure, but as I've gotten older, his character arc doesn't feel as redemptive. The stakes aren't as weighty as they were when I was a kid. And the payoff, for me at least, falls a little flat.
Also, how old are these characters supposed to be? Finster attends what appears to be a high school, but IS he in high school? There's this weird conflict between the racier and more innocent elements in this book, and I don't know if they entirely reconcile.
Then again, all this could come as a result of me having read Fanboy so many times. I like to think that a good read holds up no matter how many times you reread it, but maybe some don't. Maybe we just grow out of certain things, and they're still good, we're not better than them now, but we've moved on to something different, something more complicated. I'm not entirely sure.
In any case, Fanboy IS good, for what it is. What IT is, exactly, I'm not as sure anymore, but it's definitely worth a read, if only once.
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