Product Description: In a city filled with trust-fund babies and armchair revolutionaries, Heavy Parker rules the punk scene as a benevolent dictator. He sings lead in a local hardcore band. He puts out zines, pseudo-revolutionary material, and flypost propaganda about town. Man, it`s good to be king. Or at least it is until Missy, Heavy`s girlfriend, goes away for college. How can a guy like Heavy be expected to handle a long-distance romance? Short answer: He can’t. Missy is out of sight and Heavy’s mind is already drifting towards his next sexual conquest. A king can’t be expected to live without a queen, can he? Everything is good again, and Heavy is back on top of the heap. Or at least he is until a new Missy returns, reborn as a true NYC punk and pissed as all hell that a certain poser didn’t wait for her to get out of school on break. And she didn`t come back alone! Can Heavy survive a true group of hardcores invading his turf or will he just wind up POUNDED?
Trust Fund Baby Has @$$ Handed to Him ...and that's pretty much it. There's a lot of backend material about the genesis of "Pounded," and that (plus Wood's introduction) end up being more interesting than the story itself. There are plenty of laugh-outloud moments here, just nothing in terms of character depth that will leave you wanting to re-read it or ever encounter the characters again.
Ugh Okay, Brian Wood's got some good things going on, but "Pounded" was just...well, it was pretty bad. I saw the cover and thought "cool little indy comic about a violent punk, possibly - or hopefully - from London, or L.A. Awesome!"
Instead, I'm given a Canadian punk (not like there's anything wrong with that), who is everything a punk is not. No punk rocker has a trust fund, a penthouse apartment that his daddy pays for, a range rover, and an addiction for Starbucks drinks that take five minutes to order (I think it was like orange mocha non-fat lattes, or something wanky like that). And it seems like the story is about him learning the error of his ways, as he cheats on his girlfriend (that, apparently, is what being a "true punk" is really about), and everything he had is taken from him-temporarily. And right when you think he's going to realize how wrong he's been all this time, he kind of gets it all back. And within like two pages. So, I guess it's telling you that it's good not to learn from your mistakes.
And it finishes with our "punk" hero, standing on the balcony of his penthouse pad with the view of practically all of Canada, wearing his designer clothes, once again declaring himself the punk rock king. I don't know if this whole thing was supposed to be a joke. Wood must've wanted us to read REAL deep into it if that was the case. But...I think this is just a...BAD STORY. Nice artwork, but unless you like watching train wrecks, or seeing bad movies just to know how bad they are, avoid this like the plague.
bland, very bland I can't think of too many people liking this comic. In my opinion, who ever created this made the story take a back seat. The cover suggests violence, a lot of it. No one loves comic book violence more then me, just as long as it makes sence. This trade paper back has maybe 5 pages of fighting at the very end (very disapointing) and the rest of the comic is a teeny bopper soap opera. I like the art style, and hope that in the future the artist of this sad comic might find a story worth telling.
Rock on, Van City! I've been a fan of Brian Wood's art and storytelling since I stumbled across Channel Zero, but Pounded holds a special place in my graphic novel collection. Like others, I read the preview strips on Oni's web site (which are collected in the back of this book) and simply HAD to know where this story would lead. I have fallen in love with this tale of a punk-rock-posers fall from grace and brutal redemption. My only complaint is that there needs to be more. Every time I read this book I flip the pages again and again expecting there to be more chapters at the end. I've fallen so in love with these characters that I demand to know more about their lives, dammit! I even found myself making futile attempts to mimic Steve Rolston's simplified but highly characterized art. Even with thick black outlines, he makes Vancouver feel so real.
Anything Goes Trivia
Trevor
Megaton Man
