No Love Lost for Loveless

Yesterday, I also picked up the second Loveless collection, Thicker than Blackwater. I can't say that I'm that impressed, honestly.

The series tells the story of a small, Southern town, Blackwater, shortly after the end of the Civil War and how it's dealing with the fallout--namely, being on the side that lost and having Union soldiers occupying their town and the surrounding area. As well, Wes Cutter, a Confederate soldier thought dead has returned, pissed off a bunch of people and become sheriff. There's other stuff going on, too, but I honestly can't tell you what because

it

all

happens

so

very

very

very

very

slowly.

I've now read twelve issues of the series and I don't know that much more than when I began. I know Brian Azzarello is a big-picture writer and if you want any sort of payoff, you have to be in for the long haul, but this is much worse than other work of his that I've read. At least those other works had the occasional mini-payoff. This series, though, spends twelve issues on set-up pretty much and it's tedious--and, at times, boring.

Now, because I do trust Azzarello, I'll probably pick up the next collection in the hopes that an idea of the bigger picture emerges, but I'd recommend that anyone interested in this series wait until four or five of the books are out before picking them up.