Sunday Comics: Heavy Liquid

Heavy Liquid, by Paul Pope

Format: Graphic novel originally published as ten issues.


Content Rating: PG, for drug use and rare mild language.


Plot: What is heavy liquid? That depends on who you ask. At the most basic definition, it's a viscous metal of unknown origin, similar to but denser than mercury. But what do you do with such a material? Some see it as a potentially beautiful medium for unique metallurgy. Some see it as simply a mysterious object of value. If you ask the government about it, they'll claim it doesn't exist at all. To the man known only as S, when treated right, it is the best drug around. S has just come into a particularly large amount of heavy liquid...which he's stolen. Now four thugs and a government agent are after him, and all five are willing to kill him just to get the strange compound back in their hands. But the more heavy liquid S does, the more he seems to discover about it and about himself...


Thoughts: Despite being published by Vertigo (the adult/alternative label for DC Comics) I haven't met many people who've heard of or talk about Paul Pope's work, and the one lead I have had has simply stated that his stuff is "very odd, and probably not for most people." I'd disagree--I found his work to be very accessable and while there's definitely an oddity about it, I've certainly read stranger things (Grant Morrison comes immediately to mind). I like his art style--it's reminiscent of a grittier-looking Hernandez Brothers (a pair whos comics I also keep meaning to read--at least, their Palomar and Love and Rockets series), though the story still does unfortunately leave a bit to be desired--most prominently in the ending. It ends far too soon--right when we get the book's key plot twist, in fact. It just cuts off at the discovery of it, and that discovery, sadly, isn't enough for an ending. Heavy Liquid is still good, but it needed an epilogue. It needed one more issue, to at least explore that twist we'd been building up to and bring about a more satisfying conclusion. Still, I liked it enough to get interested in Paul Pope's other major graphic novel, 100%. Look for a Sunday Comics on that one sometime down the road.




[Holden Out.]