The comiXology digital series Moon Girl, written by Johnny Zito and Tony Trov, the duo behind Zuda’s popular Black Cherry Bombshells and La Morte Sisters (read Interview: Johnny Zito & Tony Trov, Digital Comics Gurus), is a strange beast to tackle. It’s a noir-ish superhero comic that is definitely not going to be everybody’s cup of tea. In fact, it’s almost too particular when you compare it to their previous, fairly universal, work.
Zito and Trov took advantage of a copyright that fell into public domain, rejuvenating the title character from the old EC Comics of yesteryear, an act they deserve much credit for. While they’ve put a new spin on Moon Girl, their storytelling style here is jarring to say the least. Two issues have been released thus far and have taken on a very interesting pacing. It’s an A.D.D. narrative, yet somehow the writers manage to put the series on a slow burn, revealing bits and pieces of Moon Girl’s past as a Russian princess. The entire first issue is an off kilter read, but reading it again after having finished the second issue makes much more sense. At the very least, it’s a daring decision to make with this series, especially when readership is already limited to the digital realm.
Despite how you feel about the story being told or how the narrative is structured, there are few who can deny the artistic prowess of artist Rhazzah Wundabar. Wundabar’s digital painting style on Moon Girl is all at once near photo-realistic while being abstract. Though Moon Girl is described as a superhero noir, there are very few hints of a noir style aside from some trade dress and supplemental materials. Having seen noir twists on superheroes before, it’s complimentary to see an artist tackle a similar idea in such a drastically different direction. Wundabar’s art is pristine, despite the shady world it depicts.
One unfortunately overwhelming negative on Moon Girl is the god-awful lettering. I’m not sure who is lettering the series, but they need to stop. The balloons and sound effects are enormous, ugly, and distracting monstrosities that need to undergo a complete overhaul. It’s always been said that letters desire nothing more than to be ignored, except, it seems, in Moon Girl. When you’ve got an already complex structure within a comic book series, it doesn’t help to have simple things like the order of speech balloons get in the way.
Moon Girl is an experience that I’d recommend something I rarely ever do; wait until the entire story is released, and read it all in one sitting. Judging by the way the first two issues interconnect with one another, I’m betting that Zito, Trov, and Wundabar will bring it all around to give this long defunct character another go around. That is, if the lettering doesn’t muck it all up.
