Martin, Jason – Laterborn #4

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Laterborn #4

I have nothing but sympathy for anybody who reads this site and hopes to find numerical coherence in the reviews.  Sometimes I do get #1 of a series and then work my way down the line, but more often than not I get an issue somewhere in the middle, review it, and am then sent other issues of a series (or seek them out myself) for a more balanced perspective.  Jason thought I was a little hard on him last time around (for the review of #5) and, generally speaking, he’s right.  Hey, you try to come up with something at least mildly interesting about this stuff every day.  It’s usually easy, sometimes it’s not.  One thing I do have to point out to people though: when I say that something is “mini comics 101”, well, that’s a good thing in my book.  I like comics, you see, or I wouldn’t be at the end of the eighth year of this reviewing gig.  Anyway, this extended intro was mostly so I could mention that #5 was sort of a response to #4, as friends told him that #4 was a bit heavy and he wanted to focus on lighter fare.  The fourth issue was a bit heavy, granted, but it was also a really excellent comic.  There are basically three long stories in this issue to go along with one short piece about how a longstanding “Peace on Earth” sign was taken down after the start of the Iraq war with an American flag.  The first, a long text piece (I believe these are known as “short stories” to those of you who have only ever read comics), deals with a young woman on holiday with her boyfriend, visiting his family, and her remembering a traumatic childhood of story of his and coming to a much greater understanding of his “faults”.  Next up is one of the rawest things I’ve ever seen in comics, the story of a music teacher  and his reaction to the death of his young daughter.  This piece should be copied extensively and handed out to anybody who says that squiggly lines on paper don’t have the power to move people.  Finally there’s the story of a genuine inspiration in the life of a young Jason Martin, his teacher of “Personal Growth” (yes, apparently the name of the class).  This teacher broke all kinds of boundaries, challenged his class to think in entirely new ways, and inspired young Jason in probably his first act of civil disobedience.  Jason even throws in the newspaper clipping of the event, in case we thought he was taking liberties or anything.  It’s a great mini, not a weak link to be found.  Maybe I was a little hard on #5 (it’s been a year and a half and it’s not like I have an encyclopedic memory of these things), but #4 is a wonderful thing, well worth seeking out.  $2