Diablo isn’t a bad guy. Never mind his name, his look, his character that he wrestles with. He just wants to be a good guy for once.

FIGHT! #2
Nobrow Serial Box
by Jack Teagle
Nobrow Press
September 2012

This story is very Wreck It! Ralph-ish in Diablo’s “I’m bad but that’s good…” focus. He’s a wrestler and the son of a wrestler. Because of his red skin, horns and ability to breath fire (which I guess means he actually is a medieval demon) is called “devil” and plays the bad guy. He’s about to retire and in his final fight he faces eye ball headed twins who go to town on him. The fight starts out like a normal match but quickly it becomes clear that the twins want to kill him. The crowd sees him getting beat down and slowly turns in his favor. Emboldened by the positive cheering he fights back.

After the fight, we find an injured devil who just wants to be judged by the content of his character rather than the character he plays in the ring. He seems to be a young man (since he lives with his mom) and deals with insecurities that a devil in his shoes may. If this isn’t making a ton of sense or sounding like a very good story we have a lot in common.

I know that Nobrow allows their artists to create whatever stories they want to. I think this sounds better in thought than practice. Editors do a great job of helping focus stories; not just holding artists back ala “the man.” Art doesn’t need an editor necessarily. But graphic novels really do. This one does. It’s a meandering, non-sensical, rough cut story that goes almost nowhere. I didn’t care about the characters and didn’t get the metaphor or point of Teagle making the devil good and the bad guy [mild spoiler] look like a modern surfer Jesus, but is a drunk “good wrestler” who is really bad but no one knows it.

This is my second book from Nobrow and the second time I’ve been very underwhelmed. I’m not a fan of the content or the execution of the stories.

Scott Asher is the Editor-in-Chief of BookGateway.com. His personal blog is AshertopiA – a land flowing with milk and honey… and a lot of sticky people where he turns real life into stupid cartoons, writes on Christianity, Zombies, and whatever else he wants and posts Bible studies from his classes at church.

This book was provided by the publisher as a review copy.