Miracleman, Book Two: The Red King Syndrome by Alan MooreMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Most of this book is astonishingly good. Alan Moore's writing is as brilliant as ever and Alan Davis' artwork is just as impressive as Garry Leach's from Miracleman, Book One: A Dream of Flying. Between them they produced one of my favourite sections: Mr Cream is having a nightmare. The panels on the page are warping and twisting with his dream as he falls towards us and the nightmare bursts out the confines of the frames. A bird screams, and screams again, and screams again... And, as the drawing of the bird fills more of the panel, Cream's hand reaches out and it resolves into the telephone that wakes him from his dream. Outstanding! (And basically visual - my description does not do it justice.)
And then, a car crash. A full multi-car pile up in the shape of Chuck Austen's artwork. It was jarring in the extreme. When I first encountered it, I checked the front cover to make sure I hadn't picked up the wrong book! It looks amateurish, which is ironic since at the time he was working on Miracleman, Alan Davis was driving a forklift in a warehouse and treated drawing comics as a hobby, whereas Chuck Austen was (allegedly) a professional artist. Thankfully, Austen did not last long and was quickly replaced by Rick Veitch. Unfortunately, while better than Austen, he was not a patch on Leach or Davis. Worst of all, he made what was a landmark scene in comics look scrappy and ugly... and not in a good way.
As with Book 1, there is a bucketload of original drawings and sketches included. Since I was unimpressed with the finished artwork of Austen and Veitch, it will come as no surprise that I was even less impressed with this section than I was in the first collection of stories! I suppose it is possible that an aspiring comicbook artist might find it interesting but it didn't do anything for me.
Overall, I still enjoyed the story but the artwork in the last few chapters almost derailed my appreciation.
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