Broken Frontier

Jessica Peterson is a shy and somewhat reserved young woman living in downtown LA. Although she may appear normal on the outside, on the inside there’s something malign about her.

The newly formed Virgin Comics company returns to the publishing ranks with their second project called Snake Woman. This one is a little bit different though in that American creators Zeb Wells and Michael Gaydos have been brought in as writer and artist to helm the project.

I am not sure if this was such a bright idea though, given the background of both, and for the record Snake Woman is another attempt at utilizing Indian mythology in sequential form. In this case Jessica Petersen is working and living in the heart of downtown LA. She’s typically shy and when contrasted against her more flirtatious room mate Jin, it’s like comparing apples to oranges. To top that off there’s a ton of angst surrounding her when it comes to socializing with the opposite sex, and as luck would have it Jessica meets a guy she’s instantly attracted to. The trouble here is that she’s too shy to do anything about it and this gives her roommate ample opportunity to swoop in like a predatory animal. Of course this doesn’t sit well with Jessica and she decides to break out of her shell by talking to a total stranger in the bar she works at.

Again, much of this story has little to do with Indian mythology, and as I read through it I wondered what writer Zeb Wells had in mind. The majority of the story is ambiguously written to the point that it just came across as a typical if not clichéd scenario seen way too much in American comics. I really wanted to know what a snake woman is and it was a shame the Indian mythology wasn’t utilized effectively enough for story beats. I was also annoyed with Zeb’s excessive use of Jessica’s stammering speech patterns to illustrate how unsure the character really is. Now this may not bother other readers, but I found it distracting for the most part and not very effective overall.

The art of Michael Gaydos on the other hand worked well for the type of story being chronicled here. I didn’t mind his pacing, and most of the panels worked solidly in sequential fashion. I will admit that some of it reminded me of his previous efforts on a book like Alias, and it’s easy to make comparisons to both projects due to the usage of female leads. Michael was also fortunate to get some additional support from colorists Sampath Kumar and I Jeyabalan. I guess this is the only ethnic connection on this project, and both supplied muted tones that gelled well with Michael’s stark style.

Although I gave a favorable review to Virgin’s inaugural effort Devi, I can’t say I feel the same with Snake Woman. To me it lacked suitable explanation and it was written so ambiguously to the point that there was nothing really unique about it. I have a feeling this book would have worked more if Indian based creators were more directly involved instead of just serving as colorists. I don’t know what Virgin was thinking with this project, but in fairness to them they must have been thinking about diversifying here with more known American names to help push the line. I do understand that and don’t want to fault them for it, but this issue left me feeling a little flat.