Reviewed by Ben Peek.
Creator, writer, artist: Brian Michael Bendis
Typography: Rick Conrad
Lettering: Jared Bendis (issues 3, 4 and 5)
Editor: Kim Bushman
Introduction: Matt Wagner
Afterward: Norm Partridge
Collected Edition Published 1998 by Image Comics
Bendis'
GOLDFISH is the story of David Gold, small time grifter returning
to his old neighbourhood intent on taking his son away from his ex-girlfriend,
and now crime queen, Lauren Bacall. For Gold, who has spent his years
playing with stakes he can afford to loose, this is an entirely new game,
and to do this, he uses old friends and enemies of Lauren, thus creating
a tight, emotionally controlled plot that helps carry the noir atmosphere
that is at work throughout the whole of GOLDFISH. There is also
a healthy dose of black humour throughout the story, one example of this
being Lauren's opening scene in the story, where she kills one of the
Marlowe brothers.
I shouldn't come as much of a surprise then, to learn that I think Bendis has given two fascinating central characters to hold the story together. Gold is a dark, desperate and lonely man, intent on succeeding no matter the cost, while Lauren is a cold, untouchable,friendless woman who has achieved everything she has set out to achieve. The present incarnations of their personality are wonderfully contrasted to their personalities of back flashes, where Gold is the smart mouthed, young, brash, charming grifter, and Lauren is a more likeable woman who wants to rise above what she has now.
What follows are two pieces of dialogue taken from GOLDFISH that show these differences. The first is from Gold and Lauren's past. It takes place early in the story, when Gold is scamming money in a three card monte game. Lauren has just come along and scammed him. (The third speaker is Izzy, Gold's friend.)
Lauren: "Look again-'toots'!"
Gold: "Hmmmph?"
Gold: "I don't know what the hell happened there? Lets
do it again.
Lauren: "-Double it."
Gold: "Yah-yah-sure."
Lauren: "That one."
Gold: "Shit."
Izzy: "Gold?!"
Lauren: "Do it again?"
Gold: "Yah-again!"
Lauren: "Double?"
Gold: "What else?!!!"
Lauren: "C'mon already! You're shuffling me to sleep."
Gold: "Hey-do I go to where you work and tell you how to make a 'brazier'?"
Lauren: "Cute. That one."
Gold: "Groan."
Izzy: "Yikes-his reminds me of my bris! Goldy-I do believe we've been
taken."
Gold: "Really??? Wow Iz-! You're like Jim Rockford or some fuckin'thing!"
Izzy: "You're projecting..."
Gold: "I am not proje..."
Lauren: "Uh-can I have my money boys?" Pause.
Gold: "You like movies?" Pause.
Lauren: "Yeah-I like movies. I'm Laury. What's a Goldfish?"
This second piece of dialogue happens further on in the story, whereGold and Lauren meet, to discussion his return and their son.
Gold: "It's simple Lauren. Give me the kid I walk away.
You never see me again. I'm Hoffa. If you don't, well…"
Lauren: "...Well?"
Gold: "Well... let the games begin."
Lauren: "Goldfish I... I could fuckin' squash you!!!"
Gold: "Mmmm. Interesting thing is you haven't. Granted you could, sure!
You're the queen of the North Coast, princess of Parma, yet you haven't.
I think that if you were going to, you would have by now. Why is that?
I wonder? I have a couple of theories. A little conjecture on why you
are acting so unlike your…"
Lauren: "Cocky little fuck! Maybe I just wanted to do it face to face
with my own hands."
Gold: "Well, that would be a first!"
Lauren: "Oh! Why don't you grow the fuck up already and let it go!"
Gold: "Let it go?"
Lauren: "Yah! I mean... Jesus fuck! You really ought to think aboutgetting
a life. I hear they're all the rage. It's been… let's check the calender…
oh my god… a whole decade!"
Gold: "Let it go, huh? Hmmm, like you, I suppose?"
Lauren: "What?"
Gold: "You heard me."
There is no doubt in any point of GOLDFISH that Gold has returned to get his son, and that Lauren will use anything at her disposal to stop him. At times contradicting, at times flawed - an example of this is Lauren's at first reluctance to have Gold killed, and then, after her meeting with him, her angry order to have Max 'take care of it' - they fuel the entire story.
Of course, the cast of GOLDFISH is not limited to that of Gold and Lauren. Important to the story is Tiffany De La St.Croix, the singer at Lauren's club who picks up Gold after running into himwith her car, and then hits on him, only to have him disappear to get himsome aspirin and, when returned, to find that he has gone. Arrogant, beautiful, she impacts the plot in large, dramatic ways. In contrast toTiffany is Gena, the waitress at Lauren's club. Downplayed throughout the story, her moments with Gold reveal blind spots in his own opinions of parenting - as well as a concern for his own son - and creates some tragic moments later on in the story. Gena's influence within the story is no less that Tiffany's, but she is a less dramatic, and more likeable character, whom I felt rather sorry for at the end of the story. Bendis also uses Gena and her son, Tim, to show some of the kinder, and realistic sides to Gold, as the night before he and the police storm the bar, he gives Gena the cash he won from a card game earlier in an attempt to make her give up the job. Her response is perfectly reasonable, given the situation: no.
This does not mean, however, that there are no faults with the characters and story of GOLDFISH. The lovers Max and Izzy, Lauren's right hand man, and Gold's old friend, who, in the ten years since Gold's departure, has become a cop, are the two characters that, considering their importance to the story, should have been given more page space. At times I found the motives of pair vague, as I was not quite sure what they wanted from the downfall of both Lauren and Gold. It is perhaps Bendis' point to underplay the pair, considering Izzy's cry at the end that the story should be about him, that he was as equally important to the story as Gold, and that he suffered too, so why don't they care about him? But this observation notwithstanding, I wanted more of the two, and indeed, thought the story could have been stronger if there had been.
I should also mention that, in the collected edition, Izzy's bookendsfor the last issue do not work. Originally the title was a five-issue run, and while the issues are easily marked, the story does not suffer until the final issue where this dialogue from Izzy breaks the flow ofthe story as a whole. If they it had been at the start of the arc, in the first issue, they would have worked better, and, I think, given me the feeling that Izzy and Max were shown more.
The last main character that I felt unconvinced by was Billy, Lauren and Gold's son. For such an important character to the story, he suffers from most of the problems that children characters have in works of fiction: he sounds like an adult. Not all the time, which is why I found this disturbing. To prove my point, there are two scenes that show this. The first is with Gena's son Tim, after Tim has found Gold's fallen pistol outside the club. In this scene, he is a normal, young boy who is afraid of being caught by his mother. And yet, inanother scene when Lauren confronts him over talking to Gold, he defies her with the quiet dignity of someone beyond his age. This duality was somewhat conflicting to the story and stopped me for feeling any real emotion towards him. Had he been this same frightened little boy throughout the story - which after living in his mothers nasty, tyrannical parenting he reasonably should be - I would have felt more sorrow, and been slightly more moved by his end.
The dialogue of GOLDFISH is the strongest part. Wonderfully snappish, yet cool, and with a voice that is entirely Bendis', you would be very hard pressed to find a better quality of dialogue in another comic. Flowing conversations, easily identifiable, lettered well, they are an absolute joy to read, which is something that other comics - and books and novels - occasionally leave out. But not here. Bendis has dialogue that is worth the price of the trade paperback itself.
Here is a small example from early on in the piece, where Visa and Gold are riding up an elevator to a card game in Lauren's club.
Visa: "-And I'm tellin' ya, this guy Wednesday, the guy
whose gameyou're about to crash-he hates to lose!!!!!"
Gold: "Yah-well-who doesn't?"
Visa: "No! I'm tellin' ya-"
Gold: "So what?!"
Visa: "You'll see man. He's-"
Gold: "Visa-I know what I'm doin'."
Visa: "So? Who are you??"
Gold: "What?!"
Visa: "Well, you're not suppose to be you. Right? You're not going to
waltz in there and announce that you're Bacall's bad-ass ex-partner who's
here to kick her ass all up and down Euclid Ave-"
Gold: "Well-be smart, Visa. Thinking of something." Pause.
Visa: "I don't want to die, man."
The art of the book is entirely Bendis' style as well. Using a photo referenced black and white, it gives a distinct and unique look to hiswork that you're unlikely to find anywhere else, not even in Frank Miller's SIN CITY. Using shots of hands, lips, and pauses of human interaction that can suddenly stretch out into big, quick moving action scenes, the artistic pacing is consistent throughout. One of my favourite moments of each issue - even in the collected form-is the credits, which appear in a lovely cinemascope style of framing. That said, however, the one time the art fails is when Visa and Gold enter Club Cinderella, and Bendis has used a photo shot of real people and a casino. It is a minor quibble, and my problem with it doe snot come from the fact that it is a bad photo, just a photo, and I havealways thought illustrated men and women looked poor next to a photo.
I feel compelled to mention the packaging of GOLDFISH, which is great. The trade will set you back seventeen dollars US, and comes with an introduction by Matt Wagner and afterward by Norm Partridge, as well as old posters and character drawings by Bendis himself. There is an amusing early nineties, big hair and pouting lips poster. The one problem of the trade is the prose short story that comes with it: filled with errors and rather pale next to the comic itself, I couldn't help but feel that it should have been left out.
Other than that, I can and do recommend this to all people. Now, go forth and purchase.
Recommended.
GOLDFISH is available now in trade paperback. Dave Gold also appears in Bendis' JINX.
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