Tag Archives: Donovan

Mar 14 2018

Grief is Messy in The Fix 11

By Patrick Ehlers

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

I know this is hypocritical immediately following a spoiler alert, but I don’t believe in spoilers. They’re something I respect because I know other people believe in them (like God), but the threat of a spoiler doesn’t change the articles I will read or the conversations I’ll have (huh, also like God). If a movie or tv show or book is so slight as to have the experience of it ruined by simply knowing what’s going to happen, it probably wasn’t worth experiencing in the first place. The Fix 11 starts with a seismic shift, fully acknowledging the trope that Nick Spencer and Steve Lieber are subverting for shock value. “Surprise” reads the narration box. But the surprise isn’t the point, the fall-out from the surprise is. Continue reading →

Dec 7 2017

The Fix 10: Discussion

by Drew Baumgartner and Patrick Ehlers

The Fix 10

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

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You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.

Harvey Dent, The Dark Knight

Drew: If that quote doesn’t feel like it fits this issue, it’s because it doesn’t. Where The Dark Knight explores the ideas of good, evil, and the moral relativism that exists in between, The Fix is gleefully amoral, concerned less with good and bad as it is with whatever its protagonists can get away with. Which is to say, a quote about heroes and villains doesn’t make a whole lot of sense in the world of The Fix. But I wonder if we strip away the morality from that quote, if we might get something a bit more universal (if still deeply pessimistic): you either die happy, or you live long enough to see yourself become miserable. The ordering of those outcomes betrays a cynical worldview that The Dark Knight (or at least Harvey Dent) shares with The Fix, one that presumes things are inclined to get worse. Of course, while The Dark Knight spun that cynicism into tragedy, The Fix funnels it into dark humor, making any successes Roy or Mac may enjoy are but haughty spirits before the inevitable fall. Continue reading →

Sep 20 2016

The Fix 5

fix-5

Today, Spencer and Drew are discussing The Fix 5, originally released September 14th, 2016. As always, this article contains SPOILERS.

Spencer: The stars of The Fix are not good people; Roy, especially, has been portrayed as completely immoral and self-serving. There’s one more aspect of his personality, though, that we shouldn’t forget, one which Nick Spencer and Steve Lieber thoroughly remind us of in The Fix 5: he’s pretty bad at being a criminal, too. Roy’s ability to break the law and get away with it has more to do with the corrupt institution he serves than his own skills, meaning he’ll squander any chance he has to progress as a criminal. For the citizens of The Fix‘s L.A., that’s probably a very good thing. Continue reading →

May 18 2016

The Fix 2

Today, Ryan and Shelby are discussing The Fix 2, originally released May 11th, 2016.

Ryan: The best art is immersive. After an afternoon with a book or a brief television binge, it can take a little while for my brain to climb back out of that fictional world. That’s why I knew what butterbeer tasted like before Universal studios invented a recipe or why I can’t be trusted to drive home from a Fast & Furious movie. By engaging more than a single sense, stories can offer a gateway rather than a mere window into a world. Writer Nick Spencer and Artist Steve Leiber offer that gateway in The Fix 2, by using their medium to engage more than just visually. Continue reading →

Apr 8 2016

The Fix 1

fix 1

Today, Spencer and Drew are discussing The Fix 1, originally released April 5th, 2016.

Spencer: As someone who’s always flitted around the outskirts of his local punk community, I can’t say that I’ve ever had a great deal of trust for authority figures. Still, in the past few years I’ve seen what little faith I had whittled down to almost nothing. Between the constant pushing of discriminatory laws, the circus that is the current election cycle, and the repeated, horrific abuses of power when it comes to the police (especially in regards to racially motivated crimes), it seems clear that those in power are mainly concerned with nothing but their own well being. Steve Lieber and Nick Spencer’s new series, The Fix, taps into these very concerns by claiming that most efficient way to be a criminal is simply to become one of the supposed “good guys.” Continue reading →