JACK
STAFF: EVERYTHING USED TO BE BLACK AND WHITE
By Paul Grist
Dancing Elephant
Press/Image Comics
SUPERHEROES have always been seen as a predominantly American creation. Perhaps because they had their genesis in the fever dreams of children from Cleveland and Manhattan, or perhaps because it’s hard to imagine people swinging from the skyscrapers of Addis Ababa or Bishop’s Stortford.
Whichever is the case, the number of truly famous superheroes born outside America is depressingly small – even the Canadian Wolverine and Captain Britain were created by American authors – and when non-American characters are used, they are often saddled with unforgivably stereotypical and ignorant-ass dialogue. Who can forget the Begorrah and Bejaysis stylings of the X-Men’s Irish Banshee? I know I can’t. Ever. And I’ve tried. With hammers.
And while British writers have crossed the Atlantic to breathe new life into stale old spandex, the number of decent homegrown (and home-based) superheroes is about the same as the number of talented boybands.
Jack Staff is the latest addition to that list, and probably the greatest.
Springing from the mind (and drawing board) of Paul Grist, who breathed new life into police comics with his seminal Kane, Jack Staff is the story of a forgotten hero, who resurfaces after twenty years to discover that his country still needs him.
In this first, humongous graphic novel, Jack Staff is brought out of retirement to deal with terrible monsters, master criminals, suspicious policemen and tabloid journalists – often all at once – while dealing with the consequences of his extended sabbatical.
Jack Staff is full to bursting with action, adventure, and a wicked sense of humour. Grist casts Jack Staff as an ordinary British hero – fallible, yet determined. But Jack Staff is only one character out of a whole world that Grist has created for the series. Each character leaps off the page, and look like they could support novels of their own, someday. Many of the characters conform to comfortably recognisable archetypes – plucky reporter, cynical copper, and so on – but Grist infuses them with such life as to make such narrow labels meaningless.
Grist’s characters are well drawn, in more than one sense of the word. The great emotional and physical range and deftness of touch that made Kane such a fantastic read is on display here. Grist appears to do a lot with a little, but scratch the surface and you find that Grist’s gifts extend beyond character and gross anatomy to page design, pacing and some beautiful hand lettering. There’s a masterful use of negative space, both on the page and in the writing, that you won’t find in many conventional (i.e.: American) super hero comics.
While most non-British readers will take many of the characters at face value (and so will most British readers under twenty), there are a number of suspiciously familiar cameos for the eagle-eyed codger to spot, from a certain division of His Majesty’s Home Guard to a wild-eyed mystic not a million miles away from here.
Perhaps Grist’s greatest success with this book is in creating a genuinely unputdownable comic. It’s such fantastic value for money! Each and every turn of the page unlocks a new thrill, a new gag, or a new and exciting character. Although superficially structured after British anthology comics, Jack Staff is eminently well-plotted, and one great burst of creativity.
It’s
hard to pin down exactly what makes Jack Staff such a great book, but whether
it’s the non-stop action, the strong characterization, or the snazzy uniform,
one thing that I think we can all agree on is that Jack Staff is very much The
Best of British.
Review text (C) Matthew Craig
Originally published in the pop culture magazine Robot Fist