Sunday, July 09, 2006
Legs Weaver
Yatta!
Legs Weaver is an Italian descendent of Honey West - also heavily influenced by space opera - but that's simplifying things! The series is produced by Bonelli Editore, the greatest Italian publishing company, and has 119 issues which can be read as stand-alone adventures, although there are interesting plotlines that run through them.
What makes Legs, the tough and sexy special agent for Agenzia Alfa, a little bit different is that she is gay and her stunningly beautiful lipstick-model sidekick, May is bisexual.
But May is also more than just a sidekick - she also has a very strong backstory too - including once having been an art-thief.
The series is at its best in the first 70 issues with wide-ranging iconoclastic plots, action, genuine suspense (will Legs and May hold together?) and more than a little humour. The authors were given free range to place Legs in settings of their choice and to create atmospheres of their own choosing - the full naked creativity of Italian fumetti was released onto this one character- the outcome was a phenomenon. Travelling through those first 50 or so issues was a remarkable, life-changing experience. Four years of heaven. There is a tremendous brio about the whole thing. Issue 50 is one of the great classics of comic book literature.
Sadly, towards the end of its run, major changes in plot structure and the loss of May from the series, signalled the end and it eventually petered out a couple of years later. Bonelli Editore made some big mistakes around 2002-03. They developed a long-running and quite frankly boring plot involving a war between Earth and its colonies which lasted three years and stumbled across several different characters and eventually left them in a changed world which the new authors on the team struggled with. Legs ambience was completely changed and it failed dismally. Many readers of all Bonelli products were lost during those three years.
Sad - but luckily Bonelli is now recovering as a business and is moving neatly into animation with series like Martin Mystery.
You can find out more about Legs here:
http://www.geocities.com/area51/chamber/5834/
http://www.ubcfumetti.com/legsweaver/
Legs Weaver is an Italian descendent of Honey West - also heavily influenced by space opera - but that's simplifying things! The series is produced by Bonelli Editore, the greatest Italian publishing company, and has 119 issues which can be read as stand-alone adventures, although there are interesting plotlines that run through them.
What makes Legs, the tough and sexy special agent for Agenzia Alfa, a little bit different is that she is gay and her stunningly beautiful lipstick-model sidekick, May is bisexual.
But May is also more than just a sidekick - she also has a very strong backstory too - including once having been an art-thief.
The series is at its best in the first 70 issues with wide-ranging iconoclastic plots, action, genuine suspense (will Legs and May hold together?) and more than a little humour. The authors were given free range to place Legs in settings of their choice and to create atmospheres of their own choosing - the full naked creativity of Italian fumetti was released onto this one character- the outcome was a phenomenon. Travelling through those first 50 or so issues was a remarkable, life-changing experience. Four years of heaven. There is a tremendous brio about the whole thing. Issue 50 is one of the great classics of comic book literature.
Sadly, towards the end of its run, major changes in plot structure and the loss of May from the series, signalled the end and it eventually petered out a couple of years later. Bonelli Editore made some big mistakes around 2002-03. They developed a long-running and quite frankly boring plot involving a war between Earth and its colonies which lasted three years and stumbled across several different characters and eventually left them in a changed world which the new authors on the team struggled with. Legs ambience was completely changed and it failed dismally. Many readers of all Bonelli products were lost during those three years.
Sad - but luckily Bonelli is now recovering as a business and is moving neatly into animation with series like Martin Mystery.
You can find out more about Legs here:
http://www.geocities.com/area51/chamber/5834/
http://www.ubcfumetti.com/legsweaver/
