What makes for a good comic?
I'd have to stay story comes first, but - unlike a regular book - art also comes into it. This is rather obvious, I know, but there's more: the pacing is crucial as well. It doesn't have to be fast - or slow - to be good, but it has to be right for the story. If it's an introspective exploration of human character, it should take its time; and too many slow moments in an action adventure will send the readers yawning. But this, of course, is not enough - you also need characters that are believable and you make them believable mostly through their actions and their dialogue. Both have to be consistent - not necessarily consistent with real life (where's the fun in that?), but consistent with the story's reality.
The first time I read Doug TenNapel's Creature Tech (from Top Shelf) I couldn't put the finger on why I didn't like it. It had neat technological innovations. It had wonderful art. It had a fast-paced story with loads of cool monsters. It had an effeminate British undead scientist with a neat sense of humor. What's not to like?
The second time around, I got it: the pacing's wrong and some of the dialogue was, well, horrible. Both of these were not consistently off, but when they were, it yanked me out of the story, of the world - it made everything seem unbelievable. Less fun, too.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. Which is kind of what happened to Dr. Michael Ong when he moved to Turlock, California, to head the Research Technical Institute.
RTI - or Creature Tech, as the locals have it - is more than Ong bargained for, as is Turlock. Ong, you see, was born there - and he isn't happy to be back. Creature Tech is full of crates, and until he's catalogued the lot, he's not getting a transfer. As if this wasn't enough, the crates' contents are, how shall we put it, slightly odd. Or is it more apt to call, just as an example, an alien slug beast with revolving teeth and a multi-talented symbiote "bizarre"? One wonders.
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