Reacting to The Old Guard
She Is Not In Any Way Playing
The Setup: It’s our first Reaction to a comic book! And it’s not from the Big Two! Written by Greg Rucka (Wonder Woman, Gotham Central, Black Magick) and drawn by Leandro Fernandez (Punisher MAX, The Incredible Hulk, Deadpool & Cable) – a duo who previously collaborated on Wolverine and Queen & Country – The Old Guard is about (mostly) immortal warriors who can trace their lives back through Napoleon’s attempted invasion of Russia, the Crusades, and the conquests of Alexander the Great. They’re led by Andromache of Scythia, but you can call her Andy.
Andy’s fought and fucked, loved and loathed her way across thousands of years and at least six continents, and she is tired. So when a seemingly routine rescue mission goes way off the rails, and just a few hours later her team learns that – contrary to what they’ve believed for a century or two – they’re not the last immortals left after all, Andy has to find out if she can still surprise a world that she didn’t realize could still surprise her.
Kris, who briefly studied ancient military history in college, really liked Rucka’s Batwoman: Elegy and his webcomic Lady Sabre & The Pirates of the Ineffable Aether, so when he learned about The Old Guard he asked Marchae – a BIG fan of Rucka’s Lazarus – if she’d want to react to it.
Two spoiler notices below, but until the jump it’s just first-issue stuff.
KRIS: So we’ve both read some Greg Rucka before
I don’t think I’m an expert, but I’m fairly aware of at least the range of his work
MARCHAE: I am a HUGE fan of at least one of his comics!!!
KRIS: And he seems to be One of the Good Ones re: male feminist writers
MARCHAE: YES I absolutely agree and spent even more time thinking about that as I read The Old Guard
and this notion that I have about “super heros”
but also I like some of the things he examines in his works, at least what I’ve read
KRIS: Oh good I think we’ve all wanted to hear more from you about your theory of superheroes, so definitely feel free to get into that when it’s relevant
I definitely will talk more that’s for sure - and especially since I’m reading Jessica Jones at the moment
KRIS: Also I really like how distinctive most of the faces in this are, just wanted to say that upfront although I am not super qualified to discuss the art
MARCHAE: So I’ve spent some time making connections between what I’m currently reading , a traditional comic, versus the indie books
Neither am I - but the art is gorgeous
KRIS: OH and for our readers who may not be super into comics (yet), maybe we should say how we’re reading
I’m using the Comixology reader on their website, in Guided View mode
MARCHAE: And I use an app from my public library called Hoopla
I also use a guided view mode - however I definitely prefer hardcopies
KRIS: I like Guided View a lot, although occasionally you lose some of the impact of splash pages, and there are very rarely (but especially with older comics) sequencing errors
MARCHAE: I am reading newer ones mostly, it definitely feels more cinematic to me reading it electronically.
I like it a lot especially for fast paced ones like The Old Guard
KRIS: But I wanted to just get it out there that there are good accessible digital ways to read comics, which is often more affordable, and also for some reason Amazon is selling a bunch of Marvel comics at massive discounts
Yes! Thank you for getting us back on track – the action layouts here are great
MARCHAE: Affordable and FREE!
I am a newbie to comics- I’ve only been reading them for a year maybe less - and I am obsessed with how much I can relate to them from a screenwriting perspective in terms of sequencing and layout. In this weird abstract way. This was one of the best one’s I’ve read in a while in terms of the pacing with layout - and I love it. I actually started re-reading the book just to gawk at the art etc
KRIS: Oh you should check out Rucka’s web comic Lady Sabre and the Pirates of the Ineffable Aether [see above] – it was like the equivalent of a page or so twice a week, and Rucka’s script for each entry was included
KRIS: I always mean to really break down and study a comic book or two but just like with studying TV, I end up being too lazy, and just hoping I’ll absorb lessons through sheer osmosis
I have studied the dialogue
I think more closely than anything
although I really need to study their structure
I would not guess that most comics writers do dialogue as well as Rucka
MARCHAE: It’s something about these short bursts of dialogue that kind of flow with the quick images we get that makes sense to me… I’ve read a couple that I really prefer
KRIS: I’m interested in how comics people obviously think in “shots”
MARCHAE: Revival is good and so is Alex and Ada … it shouldn’t come as a surprise that they are super character driven
KRIS: and I think a lot of screenwriters don’t
KRIS: or aren’t necessarily really well trained to
MARCHAE: It is fascinating when you think about because there are SO MANY correlations between the two
because as screenwriters and movie makers we end up having to think like comic writers when we get to the storyboarding portion of the work
which i guess is more of a production function
KRIS: Right, it should be super obvious, and we do get TOLD to think in shots but there’s still such a division (at least in our film school experience) between learning to write and learning to tell stories visually
MARCHAE: I feel like with comics the action - even in some of the not as good ones I’ve read is all about taking you to that next shot
KRIS: Honestly this is one of my very favorite parts in the whole book, just as a visual storytelling beat:
MARCHAE: I was grateful that I had the experience of reading comics at least near the end of my time in school… i did take a lot of lessons from the comics
KRIS: I think a lot of the impact for me was in the guided view
The panel before this is Booker trying to talk Andy into the mission: “He says there are kids involved, Andy. Kids.”
Then in GV you get everyone looking at Booker, and you can linger on that panel
MARCHAE: The guided view makes a tremendous difference!
it feels like a moving image
KRIS: Then the next panel makes you sort of realize that it’s not really “everyone” looking at one person, but Joe and Nico looking back and forth between the new guy and the boss
although I guess you don’t get the “new guy” information until later
KRIS: Yes! The movement is there, and can have this weird interaction with how long you can linger in a single shot
But I guess what I like about this page is how the visuals help establish the relationships even without Andy’s exposition
MARCHAE: And i feel like you should be able to tell the story without the words
some of my favorites were the panels without words period
I especially love the first few pages
KRIS: Yeah, and in a nutshell that’s what comics writers are trained to do and what a lot of screenwriters (including me!) are often too precious about their own dialogue to internalize
MARCHAE: its just a few bits of inner dialogue
(side note your dialogue is beautiful!!!)
KRIS: Yeah but I didn’t become a playwright
KRIS: ^That spread is so amazing and efficient
oh my word and its just pretty
KRIS: It’s not even a really dense two-page spread by any means and there are only like 30 words on it
But it tells us so much about Andy
MARCHAE: I’m looking at it now on my device and its in guided view - so it shows up as each individual panel
MARCHAE: and I’m hooked from the beginning and that’s what I think makes this story effective and invests you in it
Rucka does this with my favorite comic - Lazarus
KRIS: She’s a warrior, she’s been around forever, she’s bi, she’s tired, she doesn’t have a lot of meaningful human connection in her life
MARCHAE: And we get that quickly
KRIS: and obviously the sense of repetition
in her day-to-day (century-to-century)
MARCHAE: thats been going on for centuries
[SPOILERS throughout below]
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