COMICS: ps238

I bought the first TPB of ps238 (about a grade school designed specifically to accommodate super-powered children) a couple weeks ago, caving in to months of reading overwhelmingly positive things about the series on various blogs. And I liked it, enough to want to buy the next TPB, but here's the odd thing: for a humor series, I didn't find it to be funny. At all.

I don't know, maybe it was just my frame of mind when I read it, but I laughed maybe once during the entire six issues in the book. I could see the humor being attempted, I could appreciate the clever satire and over-the-top characters, but it never really amused me the way it seems to have so many other inhabitants of the blogosphere*.

And yet, I did enjoy it. I admire the painstaking detail creator Aaron Williams has invested in his work; the first issue in the volume attempts to anticipate and answer any logic flaws the reader might spot in the rest of the series (if this character has such-and-such a power, how do the teachers keep him in check? And so on). The underground lair of the school is like one of those drawings you made back when you were a bored grade schooler -- "The most awesomest fort ever!!!" -- realized with the imagination of an adult who still knows how to tap into that childlike wonder. The characters are well-realized, from the children, most of which are obvious parodies of comic book icons like the Hulk or Sandman, to the faculty and staff, including a principal who seems to be hiding a dark secret.

But though none of the characters struck me as especially funny (with the possible exception of supervillain-in-training Zodon), nor did any of their adventures, I still really liked them all. This is a smart, engaging, unique look behind the world of superheroes. I'll pick up the next book whenever it may come out, and I think I may even check out Aaron Williams' other series Nodwick as well.

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*New Year's Resolution: invent a non-idiotic sounding term for the weblog community to replace "blogosphere".