Valiant 101: THE DELINQUENTS

When I started doing this, my goal was to read through all of Valiant Comics' big stories, and get a general idea of their universe and characters. As I read more, the goal gradually grew, and I started considering alternatives. By alternatives, I mean books and stories that are not necessarily "earth-shattering", but either involve characters I had not come across yet or stories that have been critically lauded. I chose The Delinquents predominantly because of the former, but for all intent and purposes, it should be the latter as well.

The Delinquents bring together two of Valiant's top tag teams, Quantum & Woody and Archer & Armstrong. I knew a little bit about Acher and Armstrong from Unity (pre Valiant, VALIANT, era) but I knew nothing about Quantum and Woody, except the praises I had read for James Asmus' writing on Quantum & Woody. This book not only serves as an excellent introduction (which has become the staple of all Valiant Comics books) to both the dysfunctional teams but also justifies all those praises for Asmus. That guy writes laugh-out-loud comedies.

The story is credited to Fred Van Lente and James Asmus, but it is Asmus who does the scripting. Throughout the four-part saga, Asmus avoids making any obvious connection to both the duos ongoing adventures and rather dives right in by sending them off on the adventure of their lifetimes in search of a treasure. And oh, in case I forget to mention, the map to the treasure is drawn in "hobo code" on and skinned off a man's buttocks.

Asmus mixes dark humor with slapstick in this tale that is some parts buddy cop flick and some parts adventure quest to give one of the most jam-packed comic I've read in a long, long time. And I mean that both in terms of the amount of story in every issue and the number of panels per page. Consider the following page. There are like, six jokes on this one page of twenty-four panels, if you don't count the inserts. That is, as my friend would say, completely bananas.

Kano does all of the heavy lifting in the art department for this book. He draws, inks, and colors every page himself. As ridiculous Van Lente and Asmus' story is, and as funny as Asmus' writing is, it is Kano's art that makes it all work. His execution of those gags and jokes make this book actually a laugh-out-loud riot. As an example, consider the below page. It is a simple gag, but the facial expression that Kano drew for Armstrong in panel four is what does the wonders.

What Kano does really well and what made this book different than, not only all the other Valiant books I had read yet but also half the comic books on the shelves, is that rather than cramming each page with panels and information and in a certain sense, showing off, Kano's pages use a certain design aesthetic to convey the story. Sure, there are pages loaded with panels, but it never obstructs the story. In comic book storytelling, the reader's eye should float across the page between the panels and Kano manages to do that, and more.

Valiant Comics has offered me a lot of great comics ever seen I began this little project/experiment, but with The Delinquents they offered the most fun comic book I've read in quite some time. Hungry for more, I guess I am going to pick up Asmus' complete run on Quantum & Woody, and everything Kano does for now on.