written by C.S. Pacat
drawn by Johanna the Mad
colored by Joana LaFuente
And so, the first year of C.S. Pacat's and Johanna the Mad's manga-inspired sports saga Fence finally comes to a close, with the Kings Row Boys School fencing team tryouts finally coming to an end and the fates of all of the aspiring fencers, including series protagonist Nicholas Cox, finally being revealed.
It's been an interesting year following this series, and if I'm honest, this series really has provided me with a welcome break from my steady diet of superhero comics. Funny thing is, I was never really much into sports-related fiction, even through while I was growing up movies like the Rocky series and Hoosiers were all the rage, so it really was just C.S. Pacat's storytelling that drew me in, and the honesty with which she imbues her characters. There's something really engaging about how she eschews many sports-story cliches, like the stoical team captain, the hot shot who never loses a fight, or my personal pet peeve, the Rocky-style comeback. It was nice to see that the story not only played out differently, but also in a way that would tend to reflect how things happen more frequently in real life.
This is clearly Nicholas Cox's story above all the others, but without going into spoilers it pleases me to say that at all times Pacat is keen to remind both Nicholas and the readers that it's not only his aspirations that matter. We're all familiar with the adage that everyone is the hero of his own story, and it's refreshing to see a lead character being a hero in someone else's story as well. We've been riding with Nicholas all this time, getting familiar with his obsessions and insecurities, but as the hero reaches this crucial point in the overarching narrative Pacat really gets to the heart of the pain and sense of rejection that drives him, and it is utterly compelling to behold. Not only that, but Pacat lets us glimpse a bit the lives of a lot of the supporting characters, like Aidan Kane, Eugene Labao and, only very briefly Seiji Katayama, who flies into a rage at the thought of his defeat against Nicholas' half-brother Jesse Coste.
Unfortunately, even with a nicely-scripted third act for this year-long tale, Fence Vol. #3 falls short of the potential it promised because more than at any other point in this series, Johanna the Mad drops the ball on the art. Her covers remain drop-dead gorgeous, of course, but the ratio of her "super-deformed" manga-esque characters to the more traditional, "serious" rendering of the story's characters is notably lopsided here, and it's not fun to look at after a few pages. It's not too different from her previous work but there's just way too much of it here, and it feels distinctly like taking shortcuts with the art. There are some panels that utterly stand out, such as Nicholas' reaction to his coach's declaration that she is proud of him, but in previous volumes pieces of art like this used to be the rule and not the exception. This is somewhat disappointing, especially when her work is measured up against the more polished work of the Gurihiru tandem over at Marvel's now-defunct Unstoppable Wasp series.
From this point onwards--and things are just starting to get really interesting--the story's format will change from monthly issues to OGNs, and I'm kind of hoping this will give Johanna the Mad a little more breathing room to produce the best art she can offer because Pacat's pretty much firing on all cylinders these days and deserves the best her artist can offer.
6.5/10
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