By Keigen Rea — This is my favorite painting. It’s by Pere Borrell del Caso (funny story, in a class this summer I credited it to Caravaggio, and I aced the class. Hilariously, I did not know Caso was the painter until I started writing this review! Hahahahahaha). Now, I’m probably supposed to like it because of like, brush strokes or something. Maybe realistic lighting? His fuzzy hairs, perhaps. It is not those things that make this painting special to me. This is my favorite painting because of it’s name. That’s dumb, I do not care. 

This painting is called ‘Escaping Criticism,’ and I love it. By mentioning criticism in its title, it forces me to criticize the painting. Because nothing escapes criticism. The boy is trapped in the frame forever, even though his purpose as intention is explicitly to leave it behind, one day. One day will never come. 

One cannot escape criticism when it is the subject.

***

I have written quite a bit about Kieron Gillen. Maybe too much! It feels like too much at this point! I have read more words that he has written than probably any other creator in comics, which is mostly because he writes so goddam much. This is all to say that I feel like I can see his design in his works. Not that the rest of the team brings anything less to the table. Clayton Cowles clearly enjoys inventing new fonts for my brain to hear (Jamie deserved a unique font though, Clayton). Tamra Bonvillain deserves to be paid in houses for her work on any series, and Ludocrats #5 has her managing the tone of the comic almost single-handedly. Jeff Stokely drew the best courtroom drama I’ve ever seen. Marco Roblin should draw the sequel to ‘From Hell’ and it should be called ‘To Heaven’. Jim Rossignal deserves far more credit that he has gotten from anybody, including me, but to his credit, this issue felt like I should be reading it with a controller in hand. Jim, make a Ludocrats side scroller, please. 

Still, Kieron’s fingers are all over this, (which is maybe a pitch for another article) and Ludocrats #5 clearly shares DNA with Rue Britannia, Immaterial Girl (or Young Avengers, if you’re sexy), and Peter Cannon, and it exists in a weird nexus with these works where it feels like it repeats some beats, but in reality, those ideas were probably in Ludocrats first. It fits into an interesting Kieron Gillen Trilogy of, “lets not do what everyone else is doing and instead do new, sometimes angry, sometimes touching, sometimes FUN, things,” that I really love. 

Oh, look, I’m writing more about Gillen, because of course I am. His work feels designed to be critiqued, it begs me to pull it apart and see how it works, but none have done so the way Ludocrats #5, and the series as a whole, has. It doesn’t just have a critic or an authorial stand-in to help bridge the gap between reality and fiction, it very much grabs the frame it’s trapped in with one hand, and swings an axe at it with the other. It knows it is trapped, yet it still “cannot be contained!” Ludocrats, at every turn, looks directly in my eyes and dares me to call it stupid, so that it can pants me and push me down the stairs. It asks me to critique it, then wriggles away, insisting that it’s stupid while being smarter than most comics. 

In the end, Ludocrats doesn’t prove to be more than it was in the previous issues, but it does solidify everything I love about the series. It isn’t a formalistic proof that comics are high art. It isn’t the culmination of some long running storyline. It’s not the great new character find of the 2020s (it might be this, actually. See you in 2030). It isn’t trying to be Important. 

It is a fun comic. It is about doing something different, something new. It’s about doing something that has personal meaning. It’s about doing something unique. It’s about being colorful, bombastic, loud, goofy, meta, and dumb. Most of all, Ludocrats 5 is about refusing to be boring, monochromatic, or dull. 

Ludocrats #5 calls the series, “a cult favorite,” and that might be its destiny, but for me it fits perfectly into Kieron’s major works, and I hope others hold it there as well. 

Overall Ludocrats ends its life as a monthly comic, but will be immortalized in my heart and on my shelf soon enough. I’m not sure I’m it’s biggest fan, but I am 6’4” and 215 pounds, so I might be competitive! 9.5/10 

REVIEW: Ludocrats #5

Ludocrats #5
Writers: Kieron Gillen and Jim Rossignal 
Artist: Jeff Stokely 
Colorist: Tamra Bonvillain 
Letterer: Clayton Cowles 
With: Marco Roblin (artist) 
Publisher: Image Comics
Price: $3.99
CONCLUSION! LUDOCRATS ends as it began, with the release of a 32-page comic pamphlet. We leave you with fond memories and longing. Forevermore, LUDOCRATS will be the comic whose name you accidentally moan when having sex with other lesser comics.
Release Date: September 30, 2020
Buy It Digitally: Ludocrats #5

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A young shoeless boy sprints across a lush, grassy field, fleeing an axe wielding Baron. 

They have escaped.  

Protect the moon.