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mollymveh's review
dark
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
3.0
grey_jayne's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
I really love the body horror in this comic. There's a lot of danger in the story with the right balance of shocking violence and taut emotional beats. I have a lot of empathy for the main character too.
If anything, this comics arc is a little short. By the time the story has truly gotten going, it's over. It's overreliant on the volume 2. I'm going to read that next, though, so hopefully that will balance out.
If anything, this comics arc is a little short. By the time the story has truly gotten going, it's over. It's overreliant on the volume 2. I'm going to read that next, though, so hopefully that will balance out.
cobblestones's review
2.0
Far from subtle, but kind of a therapeutic read in the wake of the #metoo movement.
courtney_mcallister's review
2.0
Glitterbomb has a decent visual style, but the premise is unoriginal. The social commentary aspect also feels very heavy-handed.
unsquare's review
2.0
I’ve lived in Los Angeles for just over three and a half years now, so obviously that means I can consider myself an expert on the city, as is traditional.
Therefore, with my sacred powers as an Angeleno, I’ve decided that satires and takedowns of LA only work if they come from a place of love. If you’ve got nothing but hate for Los Angeles, if you can’t see even one iota of the appeal of this ridiculous city, then your critique will probably come out sour and clichéd.
Or, in any case, that was my reaction to reading the first volume of Jim Zub’s Glitterbomb.
In Glitterbomb, we meet Farrah Durante, a struggling middle-aged actress only minutes from destitution. Her sole claim to fame was a small recurring role on a cheesy sci-fi show many years ago, but after the show fired her, nothing has gone right since.
That all changes when she tries to drown herself in the ocean and a horrifying vengeance monster possesses her, giving her the ability to eviscerate anyone who has wronged her. At first, the unexplained black-outs and gruesome murders confuse and horrify her, but it isn’t long before she gives herself over completely to the monster’s dark desires.
Glitterbomb reads like the author visited LA once, hated it, and then funneled that hatred into a takedown of easy targets.
It’s common knowledge that actors are oftentimes horribly mistreated and that the industry is especially bad for women who no longer look like twenty-somethings, but that also means that it is an over-used cliché. Throwing in a monstrous twist isn’t even a particularly new idea, but it is what gave me a glimmer of hope about this book.
The fact that these tropes are familiar wouldn’t matter if the execution brought something new to the table, but Zub’s writing completely misses the mark. My theory is that it’s because he can’t seem find anything to love about LA.
In fact, there are any number of Hollywood satires and critiques that feel both more realistic and more powerful because they understand the allure of Hollywood without immediately holding the city and those who love it in contempt.
For example, FX’s Better Things focuses on a middle-aged actress trying to balance family life with an acting career, but it’s obvious that she loves what she does, despite the terrible people and sometimes crushing grind. It tells a far more well-rounded story by focusing on a main character who has a complex love-hate relationship with a difficult industry.
All that Glitterbomb has to say about Hollywood is that aspiring actors are shallow idiots who want fame and validation for the sake of it, and movie producers are nothing but predators.
Farrah doesn’t even have a compelling character arc in this first volume; she switches gears from despairing to malevolent with little to no build-up – it almost felt like I missed an issue – and then the book ends in a way that feels both rushed and inconclusive. I have absolutely no idea where Glitterbomb might go after this volume, but that isn’t an exciting prospect.
I also thought the art was wildly inconsistent throughout. The characters sometimes looked like completely different people from one page to the next, and I had no idea that Farrah’s babysitter was black until her mother said something her race.
This is the second Jim Zub book I’ve read and found disappointing, so I probably won’t pick up any more of his work.
Therefore, with my sacred powers as an Angeleno, I’ve decided that satires and takedowns of LA only work if they come from a place of love. If you’ve got nothing but hate for Los Angeles, if you can’t see even one iota of the appeal of this ridiculous city, then your critique will probably come out sour and clichéd.
Or, in any case, that was my reaction to reading the first volume of Jim Zub’s Glitterbomb.
In Glitterbomb, we meet Farrah Durante, a struggling middle-aged actress only minutes from destitution. Her sole claim to fame was a small recurring role on a cheesy sci-fi show many years ago, but after the show fired her, nothing has gone right since.
That all changes when she tries to drown herself in the ocean and a horrifying vengeance monster possesses her, giving her the ability to eviscerate anyone who has wronged her. At first, the unexplained black-outs and gruesome murders confuse and horrify her, but it isn’t long before she gives herself over completely to the monster’s dark desires.
Glitterbomb reads like the author visited LA once, hated it, and then funneled that hatred into a takedown of easy targets.
It’s common knowledge that actors are oftentimes horribly mistreated and that the industry is especially bad for women who no longer look like twenty-somethings, but that also means that it is an over-used cliché. Throwing in a monstrous twist isn’t even a particularly new idea, but it is what gave me a glimmer of hope about this book.
The fact that these tropes are familiar wouldn’t matter if the execution brought something new to the table, but Zub’s writing completely misses the mark. My theory is that it’s because he can’t seem find anything to love about LA.
In fact, there are any number of Hollywood satires and critiques that feel both more realistic and more powerful because they understand the allure of Hollywood without immediately holding the city and those who love it in contempt.
For example, FX’s Better Things focuses on a middle-aged actress trying to balance family life with an acting career, but it’s obvious that she loves what she does, despite the terrible people and sometimes crushing grind. It tells a far more well-rounded story by focusing on a main character who has a complex love-hate relationship with a difficult industry.
All that Glitterbomb has to say about Hollywood is that aspiring actors are shallow idiots who want fame and validation for the sake of it, and movie producers are nothing but predators.
Farrah doesn’t even have a compelling character arc in this first volume; she switches gears from despairing to malevolent with little to no build-up – it almost felt like I missed an issue – and then the book ends in a way that feels both rushed and inconclusive. I have absolutely no idea where Glitterbomb might go after this volume, but that isn’t an exciting prospect.
I also thought the art was wildly inconsistent throughout. The characters sometimes looked like completely different people from one page to the next, and I had no idea that Farrah’s babysitter was black until her mother said something her race.
This is the second Jim Zub book I’ve read and found disappointing, so I probably won’t pick up any more of his work.
foxwrapped's review
2.0
I really enjoyed the art! Really fits the sorta... noir-horror of it. But the story was superficial. And being that it was about the superficiality of Hollywood... it was filled with unearned cynicism. In the noir tradition, everyone is bitter. Or a monster. Or a bitter monster. Or a fool. The criticisms (fame is empty, hollywood is filled with sleaze, and it's not even real art) were... too easy? Narratively unconvincing. Depends too much on character stereotypes to convey motivations and interiority. And being that I live in Southern California, I'm sensitive to criticism. Sensitive in that, well... criticisms better sound genuine because 1. it's just not going to sound right and I'll know that it's weak and 2. why are you being so harsh, dude? when you don't even caaaaare
thekarpuk's review
3.0
At this point Glitterbomb may have gained a topical quality that its creators didn't necessarily intend. The abusive, bullying nature of Hollywood elite is a topic that has always existed on a periphery, being brought up even back in the 30's, but often with a sort of "that's just the way it is" bit of sadness and shrugging. Glitterbomb seems like a sort of catharsis for women who've been terrorized at their place of employment by a man who seemed immune to reprisal.
What's awkward about this is how seldom we see women actually getting to tell these stories themselves. I'm sure Jim Zub means well, this volume even has a large afterwords with essays by a woman who'd experienced truly unpleasant things in the industry, but at the end of the day I don't know how much the comic itself says about the matter.
Put another way, how much of a value is there in the female revenge fantasies written by male feminists? It's not a new idea, these stories have existed for ages, but they don't really seem to help much beyond making men feel better.
As an example, it's a well Quentin Tarantino has returned to multiple times, and yet this same man seems extremely quiet when it came to the topic of notorious sexual harasser Harvey Weinstein, who he worked with for years.
I suppose I'd be more okay with how often men are writing comics about female protagonists if it felt like publishers also had a lot of women writing male protagonists. This is not how it's currently playing out. So it ends up feeling like white guys are telling everyone's stories, and that doesn't feel productive no matter how much they act like they're championing the marginalized.
What's awkward about this is how seldom we see women actually getting to tell these stories themselves. I'm sure Jim Zub means well, this volume even has a large afterwords with essays by a woman who'd experienced truly unpleasant things in the industry, but at the end of the day I don't know how much the comic itself says about the matter.
Put another way, how much of a value is there in the female revenge fantasies written by male feminists? It's not a new idea, these stories have existed for ages, but they don't really seem to help much beyond making men feel better.
As an example, it's a well Quentin Tarantino has returned to multiple times, and yet this same man seems extremely quiet when it came to the topic of notorious sexual harasser Harvey Weinstein, who he worked with for years.
I suppose I'd be more okay with how often men are writing comics about female protagonists if it felt like publishers also had a lot of women writing male protagonists. This is not how it's currently playing out. So it ends up feeling like white guys are telling everyone's stories, and that doesn't feel productive no matter how much they act like they're championing the marginalized.