Reading Through 2021 60: Murder Falcon, by Daniel Warren Johnson

Murder Falcon, by Daniel Warren Johnson

2019

Daniel Warren Johnson is the current 'it' boy in comics. If his name comes up in an online community, it's shortly followed by people chiming in that he's the bomb, he rocks, that he can do no wrong. I felt some obligation to at least sample his work.  Whether a mainstream artist clicks with me is always a gamble. Sometimes I'm right there with the adoration (Frank Quitely, Sean Murphy), and sometimes I think a popular artist is overrated (David Finch). So I had some trepidation going in to this, because if I don't love it, people can get mighty offended that I don't share their love. At the same time, when some art is placed on a pedestal, it's hard for me not to be more critical than if I went in blind. The work can't just be a pleasant surprise, it has to live up to the hype.

Anyway, this was good, and I say that with my voice raising an octave on "good." Nothing revelational, but it was definitely better than the uninspired stuff that dominates the stands.

Murder Falcon is a rock and roll action comic. Murder Falcon fights monsters with the power of rock and roll. It comes from a lineage of 80's rock where music is a super power. I mostly know it from comedy, where Bill and Ted unite the world with rock, Bobby defeats Satan with guitar riffs, and Tenacious D's whole thing. I get it, but it's not an instant home run for me on the concept alone. Awesomeness is good for an issue, it's harder to carry a book with it.

The sound effects are integrated into the story incredibly well

What I can say is that he does what he's doing really well. He takes the concept of epic rock music, and marries it to epic action fighting. At a glance, the first person I'd say this is influenced by is Paul Pope. Both have that loose, inky line, and art which is anti-photographic. But after an issue or so, I saw Walt Simonson Thor all over the place; in the impact of the fight scenes, but even more so in the unification of sound effects and action. The lettering isn't John Workman-level flawless, but it's a lot better than most books I see. It has an organic quality. Johnson is credited with some lettering, so I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of it was drawn into the original art, rather than layered in with a computer.

There's a bit of manga in there too

The story has a simple set-up: There are monsters invading the world, and Murder Falcon is here to save the day. He comes from a realm called "the Heavy" gets his power from guitar music. He takes a depressed young man and gets him to pick up the guitar again and round up his old band. His old bandmates each get a creature fighter linked to their instrument: a mammoth for the bass, a sea creature for the drums, and so on. They defeat the monsters, and the young man learns a lesson about never giving up, and as the book says it, "screaming into the void." 

It's not trying to be serious, and if you want a serious story, don't buy a book called Murder Falcon.

There's no rules to the world beyond what Johnson feels like drawing. Mythology expands as the story demands

It's never trying to pretend it's anything other than fantasy, and it leans into the comedy in a lot of places. The humor is hit and miss for me. I hated Rambo as a kid, and Murder Falcon is buff, shirtless, and wears a red bandana. They get enthusiastic over beer, which is rock and roll I suppose, but I've never been into American beer jokes. Murder Falcon is a love letter to a lifestyle I avoided in high school. I understand it, but it just doesn't resonate with me as it does to other readers. 

I had a similar experience with Scott Pilgrim, where the first book was really exciting, then I read the second and the novelty just wore off. I didn't find anything too surprising beyond the initial set up in the first issue of this. Johnson throws in a bunch of stuff he wants to draw with a music connection or gives it a musical twist: kaiju, guitar shredding, samurais, vans. 

Looks great

This is to say, it's a mishmash of cool stuff. It's in a story that manages to be coherent. It moves in a straight line: members are added each issue, they get closer to the big bad, and in the final issue they fight the big bad. That's better than a lot of mainstream genre books these days, which often spend four issues just introducing the concept of the book. The book is refreshingly simple and understandable.

Most of the team

I'm sure some people will be touched by the message of the book, the idea of screaming into the void. It's a positive message. I had trouble being emotionally affected by it because the rest of the book was filled with so much goofiness. The book is turned up full blast for 20 pages at a time, then it has a few 'quiet' pages where it's emotional, then it explodes again. The net vibe was the full blast stuff, not the sentiment.

Like a lot of good artists though, it's not what he does but the way that he does it. Johnson gets a lot of narrative leeway just by giving his all on each page.

That's a good looking wolf

My main takeaway was that he drew the shit out of this book. It didn't have a single page where the art felt rushed. Just for that, it was a book worth reading.

I'd like to see him do a story where it wasn't full blast page after page. It sounds stupid to say to a guy, "Hey, you know that thing you do so well? Don't do it so much."  But when every page is so big, it's not so much epic as it is grinding. He's done a well-received Wonder Woman book since, and has a Beta Ray Bill story coming out soon, and I'm interested to see if he can pull off more nuanced writing. This was good, so I'll keep my eye out for it.