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Review: Street Angel: Superhero for a Day

October 25, 2017

By Daniel Vlasaty

I'm a recent convert to the world of Street Angel. The first time I even heard about the character was with the recently released Street Angel: After School Kung Fu Special. And I enjoyed that. So, I read everything I could get my hands on of this homeless teenage skateboard crime fighter and her adventures. I killed everything that was available online, and I bought a couple of older collections I could find. And then, this summer, Image released another hardcover story – The Street Angel Gang. And I read that one too and enjoyed it. So, what I'm trying to say is that I'm a fan of Jim Rugg's and Brian Maruca's creation and that I was also super excited to see that they had another book coming out. Unfortunately, Street Angel: Superhero for a Day kind of missed the mark for me.

Review: Annual vol. 1

September 27, 2017

Annual #1 is unlike many other comic books on the market today. It is not a graphic novel, but it’s significantly more comprehensive than a simple single issue of a comic book. It’s also completely segmented, including multiple stories as well as written essays featuring many different artists. In the introduction Joe Casey, the main writer for the comic, claims this project is his attempt at emulating the anthology issues that influenced him as he matured as a writer and to this end he succeeds. However, Casey attempts to make this composite reflect the industry’s current state of more personal, character driven stories and in this way I feel Annual #1 ultimately falters.

Review: The Street Angel Gang

July 26, 2017

By Daniel Vlasaty

In case you didn’t know: Jesse Sanchez, AKA Street Angel, is a lot of things. She’s a thirteen-year-old orphan. She’s been called the world’s best homeless skateboarder. She’s also a master of kung-fu and other fighting styles. She’s been known to hate school, but loves food and will pretty much eat anything and everything. I had never heard of Jesse Sanchez or Street Angel or even Brian Maruca and Jim Rugg until the Street Angel: After School Kung Fu Special hardcover was release recently from Image Comics. That book was silly and ridiculous and everything I love about comic books. I went out and searched for more of their work, found some older Street Angel collections, read some of the original web comic stories, loved it all. And I was super excited to see that the crew of Maruca and Rugg had another Street Angel book coming out. This is a review of that book. The book is called The Street Angel Gang, and it’s about Street Angel maybe or maybe not trying to join a gang.

All-new STREET ANGEL story coming this July

May 15, 2017

The Eisner Award-winning creative team of Jim Rugg (Afrodisiac, The PLAIN Janes) and Brian Maruca (Afrodisiac) will release THE STREET ANGEL GANG in a full-color hardcover this July from Image Comics.

Review: Street Angel: After School Kung Fu Special

April 26, 2017

By Daniel Vlasaty

When I was in eighth grade I “dated” a girl named Katie. While I was reading Street Angel: After School Kung Fu Special the first thing I thought about was Katie. Which is kind of weird, considering I haven’t thought about her in like 17 years. The reason I thought about her was because she reminded me a lot of the main character, Jesse Sanchez, minus all the kung fu. Although Katie did get into a lot of fights that year we “dated.” Like Jesse Sanchez, Katie was a bad girl. And I don’t mean like “oh, damn, she bad.” I mean like she was just straight up bad. Criminal bad. Like, I remember one time this other girl looked at her wrong, I guess, and Katie threw a chair at her, right in the middle of class. It was funny at the time, but now looking back it was kind of just crazy, really. Or the time she threw a sandwich at the back of Mr. Boswell’s head in the lunchroom. Anyway, I had no idea what to expect when I started reading this book, and here I am now thinking about a girl I “dated” when I was like 14 that I now realize I was really just afraid of. I don’t know, I feel kind of weird now. Thanks Jim Rugg and Brian Maruca.