07-24-07

Not-So-Wild West
There are those who will read this review and wonder why I only awarded two stars to Crowfeathers by Amy Watson.  To be honest, Crowfeathers is not bad.  And therein lies the problem.  Crowfeathers is "not bad" in the way that a Crichton novel is "not bad", in the way that the movie Showgirls was "not bad".  Crowfeathers is simply "not bad", and that is the best and the worst thing to say about it.

The art is technically perfect.  Watson lays accurate greyscale filters across precision inks.  She frames with near-perfect economy.  Even the rare splash pages guide the eye as if Watson herself were taking the reader by the hand and showing him where to look.  If I wrote a book on how to produce a manga, I would use Crowfeathers as an example of how to draw it.  But that's the problem.  It stops there.  Crowfeathers is technically perfect, but there's nothing of Watson in it.  It looks good, but it looks good like every professionally produced anime or manga looks good.  Watson doesn't test herself, doesn't test the artform, doesn't test the comic.  The art is simply an efficient medium for presenting the story.

The Crowfeathers story begins at the ending.  There's a literary term for tales like this, where narratives are encapsulated within flashbacks, framed by current events, but I forget what it is, and I don't really care enough to go look it up.  Whatever the term is, Crowfeathers uses it to serviceable effect, and begins the story of Chase Corbeau, who has been fully transformed into a crow as punishment for something he may or may not have done.  Whatever it was, it involved a lot of blood and more than a few deaths.  Besides one memory splash, Watson doesn't get into it; we can only assume that she'll return to it in the future.

So Corbeau the crow meets an old Native American, who is definitely more than he seems and is probably (based on various intricately-crafted looks and artfully cryptic hints) Corbeau's otherworldly father, and tells the story of his life.  There are, of course, current-time interludes, and Chase is introduced to the old Indian's goddaughter and her children.  He blithely continues his tale for the children's benefit.

Chase, it seems, grew up in an American Southwest that owes more to Vash the Stampede and Sergio Leone than it does to Louis L'Amour and John Ford.  Sort of.  Watson coyly avoids any real critique of her historical accuracy by not specifically placing Chase anywhere except in the American Southwest Desert in the late 19th Century.  The land that can be called the American Southwest is huge, ranging from the dry side of the Texas Hill Country west through New Mexico, Arizona, and Southern California, and north through Western Colorado, Nevada, and Utah.  Like Middle Ages Europe, 19th Century Southwest America is mythical in its stature and its ability to be used as a backdrop for almost any story; the real history and mythologies of the area are so numerous and diverse that there are no experts on the entire oeuvre, only in individual parts, some of which may contradict other parts.

And Watson goes out of her way to ensure herself of that uncertainty.  The town has no discernible name.  The nearby reservation may hold Hopi, or Apache, or Navajo (or Mexica, Caddo, Pueblo, Kiowa, Southern Cheyenne, or Comanche).  The mythology is non-specifically Native American.  Even the plant life are intentionally wide-ranged:  Prickly pears, Agaves, Cottonwoods, and sages. 

It's this careful avoidance of specifics that hurts Crowfeathers the most.  Well, it doesn't hurt the story, exactly.  I should rather say that it doesn't help the story.  Like the artwork, the story is technically precise, but soulless.  There's just nothing to set it apart, nothing to make it worth reading.  Chase is a tortured soul, struggling with the demons within him.  Just like Inu Yasha and Vampire Princess Miyu.  It's a story that's been told a thousand times.

Why bother telling it again?

Crowfeathers by Amy Watson
Updates:  Irregular (complete chapters)
Caveats:  Enh...
Rating:

Erratum:  The paragraph regarding my believe that Watson is intentionally vague about the setting of Crowfeathers is erroneous.  I missed a few minor details during my trawl, and apologize to you and to Ms. Watson.