Polarity #1

Polarity kind of threw me for a loop. Now look: I know it's somewhat of a spoiler to say that a book has a twist at the end, because then you're looking for it. However, don't worry. You won't find it at all. It isn't so much a twist, as it is a sudden turn into another direction.

The book presents itself as a sort of slice-of-life story about Tim, an artist dealing with a crippling bipolar disorder. After experiencing a near-death experience, he's diagnosed, medicated and selling art to people he refers to (derogatorily, I might add) as hipsters. The way it's phrased and the way the artist parodies the extreme fashions of the New York trendsetters (or trend followers), you can almost feel the contempt coming right off the page.

The old saying is “write what you know,” and Max Bemis has certainly been doing that. He admits in the letter page that his inspiration for Polarity is an exaggerated version of what he went through as a bipolar musician starting to get famous.

It also echoes a lot of the lyrics from his band Say Anything. So when it comes to writing about guys that are a little crazy, a bit depressed and can't get the girl, Bemis knows what he's doing, because he has been at it for years.

The artist, Jorge Coelho, seems to know what he's doing as well. He's definitely better at expressing depression, feeling awkward and a bit more manic faces than he is at some of the other emotions. A couple times our protagonist is angry and the face isn't exactly the best.

However, when Tim goes off his medication his anger seems a bit more believable, so maybe the artist is a genius and just made Tim's anger more subdued because of the medication. If that was what he did, I'm incredibly impressed.

Although, maybe he's just a little inconsistent.

The character design, however, is brilliant. Every background character looks unique. With such a wealth of eclectic styles that New York hipsters have to offer, it's not that hard to design a variety of interesting background characters. It is, presumably, difficult to draw them all though.

This was a solid first issue. It didn't drag on, and it didn't feel like it was all exposition either. Maybe it's because I'm a Say Anything fan and I've heard about similar characters a lot, but I felt like the main character was very well developed.

I really felt for Tim, and every issue he has. Since Bemis has gone through these feelings, he knows exactly how to express them. It certainly helps that he writes a lot of music designed to pull on the heartstrings.

I would have been perfectly fine with the slice-of-life story that was presented to me, but that isn't exactly where this book is going. It's definitely got more of a hook than that, and you should check it out.

Plus, I didn't catch a single actual reference to a Say Anything lyric, which makes me feel like he's actually trying to write something new.