THE BEAUTY VOL 1 BY JEREMY HAUN + JASON HURLEY - REVIEW
The Beauty, confirming that 'don't be silly, wrap your willy!' is actually a great lesson to live by.
An STI that makes you look beautiful, gives you a great metabolism, and excellent healing abilities all for a roll in the hay and a bit of a fever? Sounds heavenly right? Well, no actually, unless you wanna look like a spit-roasted pig that has been basted in rocket fuel.
In all seriousness, this was quite a fun read and really tackled issues we have today about what 'beauty' really is and the extraordinary lengths we will go to to achieve it. In Haun and Hurley's collaboration we follow Detectives Vaughn and Foster as they deal with the (as it turns out) pretty lethal side-effects of the STI that everyone wants.
As a 21 year old woman I've been barraged with media telling me to look a certain way to be beautiful; do the carrot enema diet to lose 50 pounds in one day! got a wobbly tummy? here's our tips to hide your shame, cause beautiful people don't bloat or wobble! Got curves? Not got curves? You're not a real woman! Follow our specific diet, exercise, satanic sacrificial rituals, and life plan to be a 'real' woman today! If my poor humour didn't make it clear I have a clear disdain for this.
I've tackled my own body issues for years, keeping myself incredibly skinny by not eating properly cause I kept getting told it 'looked good' (when in reality I looked ill af), to, when I finally hit 16, gained weight after looking after myself and eating right. I was happy, I had a second bout of puberty that gave me a butt and made me feel less like a 7 year old child, but then I was attacked by individuals for 'getting fat' and was made to feel crap again, right after I felt I'd done better for myself. I've finally accepted that those people were jerks and that I'm better health and looks wise than I was in my size 6-8 days. My reason for staying that small were bad and came from toxic places on the internet and my circle of friends. Now I've come to realise and accept that my issues with my body didn't come from myself, but outside sources. Those sources can suck it because, I'm awesome, my body is awesome and screw you guys for saying I'm anything less than your perfect. Go hug a cactus.
It does lack the further depth a novelisation of this would have but that's to be expected, comic books are what they are: beautiful examples of art and writing that tell their stories with a combination of these and I love them. Sometimes I'd like things to be explored more but that's the nature of the comic, often arcs are short or handled quicker than I would like but I deal with it, it's probably just cause I read too quickly and don't take in all the little things the artist brings to the plate. I'm working on it, especially cause the artwork in this deserves some more focus because it's actually gorgeous and I need to slow down and appreciate it so much more.
If you like comics with a bit of darkness to them then I'd give this a read, or if you like a comic with an interesting concept; I think it's got a lot of potential and I'll be keeping my eyes out for the next volume to see how the storyline progresses. It leaves you on a bit of a cliffhanger/obvious start to a new arc so I'm just trying to contain myself from reading the individual comics till that fateful day.
Rating: ★★★★