The Beauty

Originally published at Full of Words. Full disclosure: I received a free review copy of this book from Net Galley. The Beauty Volume 1 has one cool idea and not much else: there is a new sexually transmitted disease that makes you beautiful. If you contract it, you become young, thin and pretty within minutes. The only apparent side effect is a constant low-level fever, so people go out of their way to get infected. It isn’t long before half the population has The Beauty. There are factions who object to The Beauty for political and religious reasons, but the real problem is that people with The Beauty are starting to spontaneously combust and nobody knows why. When a woman combusts in public, two police detectives (one of them infected) try to find an explanation. They face opposition from government officials trying to cover it up and a shady pharmaceutical CEO who just wants to make a profit. The story turns into a by-the-numbers conspiracy thriller/mystery after only a few pages. One of my biggest problems with The Beauty is that I didn’t care about the main characters at all. They are generic pretty people who only want to Solve The Crime And Stop The Conspiracy. Neither of them has an identifiable personality and their dialog is basically interchangeable. The villains get slightly more characterization and/or back story, if only because we see them doing things that aren’t necessarily related to the case at hand. That doesn’t mean their motivations are clear, however. One villain wears a skull mask and eviscerates his victims to show that he’s obviously a very bad dude, but his appearances in the story are all gore and no tension because his actions feel utterly impersonal. When I finished reading this volume, I had to check to find out if it was a mini-series or an ongoing title. It felt like a complete (if underdeveloped) story, so I wanted to know if my instincts were correct. It turns out that it is an ongoing series even though the sixth issue wraps up a lot of threads and ends with a note of finality. One thing I did like about The Beauty was the art. It has a clean, realistic style that emphasizes the absurd horror of spontaneous combustions. Unfortunately, the story doesn’t give the art much to work with, so the book feels slight and generic. After reading so many disappointing comics with boilerplate stories and undeveloped characters, it’s starting to feel like a problem with the medium. There are exceptional writers like Matt Fraction, Chip Zdarsky and Brian K. Vaughan working in comics, but the ability to fully develop a character in a few panels seems like a rare talent. Unfortunately, The Beauty doesn’t deliver on the clever idea at its core because the characters are personality-free and generic.

¡Ese final, BRUTAL! Me quedé alucinando con Vaughn.

I don’t even know how to describe this. This is horrifying, and terrible, and amazing. The art is very good, the writing is superb. I am not into horror, but this blend of sci-fi, dystopia, horror and mystery is too good and I want to read it all!!!

The Beauty is both an interesting and weird horror/scifi graphic novel dealing with an STI that causes people to become intensely beautiful. This is, unsurprisingly, an exciting development for many, and hoards of individuals deliberately infect themselves. Life is good until those with the illness start to spontaneously combust. It's a fun premise to play with, though I would have preferred the story be more decompressed. It speeds along so fast that it's hard to get a feel for this world. However, I hear that volume 2 deals with flashbacks, so exciting! I am curious enough to want to find out what is happening in this strange world, and whether my theories about the STI's purposeful creation prove correct!

Bravo, sirs. Really though, kudos. I never thought that I'd be able to say that I was intrigued by an STD, but Jeremy Haun and Jason A. Hurley have accomplished that for me. When we think of STDs, we think of them as things we don't want to contract. They are uncomfortable, embarrassing, and often terrifying in the way that they manifest themselves. In the world of The Beauty, that's all changed. What if you could contract and STD that would make you flawless? Perfect skin, perfect hair, no known side effects. If Haun and Hurley are right, that would spread like wildfire. Oh, this was so good. The first volume of The Beauty does an amazing job of pulling you right into the middle of the story, but leaving a few loose ends dangling out there to keep you reading. I found myself caught up in a mystery. Remember when I said that this disease had "no known side-effects"? Well, they make themselves known fairly soon after you start reading this story, and they aren't pretty. While I could have used a little more background on our main characters, I liked them so much that it didn't make a difference after a few pages. I have a feeling more we'll get to know them better very, very soon. This entire storyline is honestly brilliant though. It spotlights our obsession with fads, with beauty, and with being part of the masses. On the flip side, it also spotlights the terrible things that go on behind the scenes. Like big business having the opportunity to help people, and withholding it for profit. We all suspect that goes on, but Haun actually shows it close up. He takes these normal people, who never even wanted the "gift" they were given, and their struggle to just lead semi-normal lives. Add in an art style that is gorgeous, and an absolutely perfect addition to this story, and you have a series that I'm firmly in love with. I'm glad I waited for the first trade paperback to come out. I don't know if my heart would have survived single issues. I can tell you right now though, I'm in for the duration of The Beauty. It has hooked me, and I'm completely okay with that.

I adore the concept of a disease that people actually want to catch. The side effects are primarily an improvement of facial features, better skin, hair, and slim bodies. The perfect body is a disease away, who doesn't want it? The only problem is people are dying because of it. There is a lot of cover-ups and political agenda surrounding this disease since not everyone wants the truth to be known. I felt there was a lot of build-up in this first volume that was kind of resolved in the last pages and giving some sort of ending to the story. There is still a lot of questions that weren't explained and whys that weren't explored. If the other volumes follow this same cast of characters I might continue reading otherwise, I might just stop here. I enjoyed a lot, it's a nice plot, but I don't want to keep knowing a new cast of characters every volume.