Brat Pack is not what I would call an enjoyable read, and I say this with full knowledge of every implication of that phrase. Despite this, I don't think there is a single book that proved to me the uselessness of trying to use an "objective" standard, such as a 5 star rating, to critique an art form. To understand why, I'd first like to speak of the context under I read it first. I first read Brat Pack in 2018, while in the middle of a research for a seminar project of an infamous class in my u...

One of very first of the 'dark, serious' looks at super heroes, but quickly slides into satire ( or to be accurate, ragging on super heroes with a ton of adolescent jokes) and then rushes into an ending with a big blur of nonsense that explains little and seems like a set up for a sequel that never happened.Most of the cast is one dimensional and unlikable. Against my better judgement, I really enjoyed the Midnight Mink character, and since he's the only character with a personality, Veitch seem...

This was my first dip into Veitch’s work! I heard he was pretty subversive and worked independently outside the comics industry. Brat Pack does for sidekicks what Watchmen did for superheroes—it’s a complete deconstruction of the ideals. Basically, the so-called Brat Pack are a bunch of sidekicks in a city called Slumburg and at the beginning of the book they are all killed by a bombing from a villain known as Doctor Blasphemy. Their superhero mentors decide to get all new teenagers for their Pr...

When Doctor Blasphemy kills the Brat Pack, the kid sidekicks of the heroes of Slumburg, Moon Mistress, the Midnight Mink, King Rad, and Judge Jury have to find some new recruits. Will the new Brat Pack even find their footing before joining the old Brat Pack in their fate?I've been aware of this book for years, thanks to the iconic cover of Chippy, the Robin analogue, shaving his legs. When I saw it was being brought back into print, I decided it was time to finally read the thing.Brat Pack remi...

Where Watchmen was moody and existential, this creation, another popular graphic novel in the age of superheroes getting killed and shown as real, fragile, maybe even antagonistic superhumans. This wacky, outrageous--but still very much grounded in the graphic fantastic--comic has a certain pessimism that carries though the ages. Where Watchmen was the End of the World, Brat Pack is the End of the Sidekick as we know it!!

While I find the Heidi MacDonald's cover blurbed assessment (from Publishers Weekly: The Beat), that "Brat Pack completes the troika of immortals works dissecting the super-hero genre, the other two being Dark Knight and Watchmen," a bit of an overstatement – both in terms of Veitch's comic having had the same kind of impact as the other two works referenced and in terms of their simply being a troika to begin with (after all, the dissecting, deconstruction and even reassembling of the genre has...

Bratpack is an on-the-nose superhero deconstruction and morality tale with a brash, gonzo sensibility that I dislike. Veitch is criticizing superhero comics' violence, fascistic inclinations, commercialism, and particularly the clouds of exploitation and pedophilia over young super-sidekicks. But his approach has no depth or nuance, and there's not much of a story, just a bunch of characters spiraling to extremely obvious and unconvincing depths. Some of the art is pretty good, but there are a b...

Brat Pack is a time capsule.

Written shortly after Rick Veitch's acrimonious split with DC Comics, and boy does it show. Without much difficulty one can spot the modified avatars of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Arrow, Robin, Wonder Girl, and Speedy. Darkly satirical, Brat Pack takes the concept of the superhero kid sidekick to a perversely logical end. Tho' I'm not sure if the graphic novel is always fair to it's subject. Kid sidekicks are a product of a form of stories aimed primarily at kids, so to turn around an...

I love me some crude dark themed graphic novels and this certainly did not disappoint.The art is amazing with great architecture all around, the characters are really well constructed and rounded, the plot is fast and entertaining and the author does a great job showing us a crude world and you see that when you are reading and you start to feel helpless in some way, being immersed in this world is kinda scary and that makes it great.An amazing job at criticizing sidekicks and a very recommendab...

Did it ever happened to you to come across an internet video made by conspiratory personalities such as Alex Jones and the whole Anti-Vaxxers movement in your life? they're usually made from people with no scientific knowledge who pretend to know something about science because they've read it from a second-third rate source instead of getting more credible information, or they stick to superficial elements making assumptions that have no reason to be in the first place. For example, a well-know...

This was a pretty interesting story about a group of superhero sidekicks called the Brat Pack, and how they are all inducted into the sick world of superheroes. It's set in a world where the heroes are violent, deviant sociopaths, so it's a bit of a precursor to something like The Boys, and is just as unflinching in its depictions of depravity. I think I liked Veitch's art better in Swamp Thing and Miracleman, but I did enjoy the flyover of Slumburg that begins each issue. There are other parts

Almost nothing about superhero comics and settings makes a lick of sense, but I can't think of any other part of them that's as disturbing as kid sidekicks. Pick up a teenager from the streets, turn him into a warrior instead of letting him go to school, ruin his life, possibly abuse him sexually. A lot of dark implications about a father-/mother-figure, someone they should trust, making them do shit like this.On one hand, you'd think it should be easy to deconstruct the whole mess, parody it in...

Not as good as I was thinking it would be. The problem with reading a lot of the comics that come out when they were just starting to really hold a microscope to the more bizarre nature of comics, is that now we are very far removed from that era. It seems derivative of a lot of other work, even though the opposite is true. I'm also not a huge fan of comics where it's playing up idea's that I don't think really matter. One of them here is the idea of Batman and Robin having a homoerotic relation...

Deconstructions of the superhero genre are always interesting, and Brat Pack is easily one of the best I've read so far.I really like graphic this one is. Veitch isn't afraid to show the ugliest parts of humanity, and that's probably why Brat Pack is such an unforgettable experience to read. It delves into some heavy topics that should leave you thinking for a while.

Absolute garbage. Its on-the-nose commentary lacking in any kind of subtlety makes it more hilarious than thought provoking, the cynical tone is something that I more laughed at than actually enjoyed and the fact that people would say that this pretentious, pointless piece of "entertainment" should be considered among the likes of Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns is a damn insult.If you just want to read something that has horrible things happen without any kind of rhyme or reason, and no ac...

THIS IS GRADED AS A REVISED WORK because that's exactly what he did and still couldn't make it good.He went for the cringe every time at the expense of the message he was trying to portray. WAY OVERBOARD 75% of the time distracting the reader with needless horror that didn't fit.It mostly didn't make sense and what did was weak at best making it a failure as a commentary.Gaiman's introduction is all that held it together because without him telling you what Veitch was TRYING to say it would have...

Fantastic slice of super hate for the superhero genre!

This is a book, once read, changed me as a comic reader. It mocks the comics industry and the (future) corporation takeover style of people who see the cinematic universes over the comics first. It deconstructs comics just as well if not better, at least on American terms, as WatchmenAs DC fans eagerly dialed in to vote on whether or not a (fictional) child should be killed or let see the light of day, the ultimate ending was a brutal killing. And while it was done in a fictional universe with p...

I didn't realize what this book was about when I picked it up, I just went for the provocative cover.Gaiman's intro really put it in perspective for me and after reading it, I really appreciate the point that Veitch was making, even if the story and art itself were are times over the top and jarring. Even though this was written in response to the comic boom in the 80s, I think several of his points still hold up when considering our current superhero movie universe. Is it a coincidence that Mar...