Indie Comic Review: The Champ

Art is an incredibly subjective medium, especially when it comes to comics. Art style can determine an almost infinite number of factors in regards to the reading experience. A very loose art style can give the story an amorphous feeling that can be hard to pin down. This tactic can be used to great effect to give the reader a sense of unease and wobbly footing. However, too loose a style can be hard to read and decipher. The trick is finding a nice balance between the two. Champ sometimes succeeds on this front, but it can take it a bit too far. 

The story is about a washed up boxer that's put into a nursing home. Because of his dementia, the boxer has a very thin grip on reality, made worse from a brutal career taking hits. Those who work at the home have been manipulating him into boxing matches, but the old boxer turns the table on his captors, taking them down himself. 

On its surface, the premise is a very interesting one. The plot and character arc work together pretty smoothly to move the story along. At times, Champ's rough art style helps give a sense of the boxer's dementia. You can't help but feel lost and scattered by it, much the same way the boxer feels nearly all the time. However, the loose art style does blend a little too much at times, making the action hard to decipher. I would've preferred just a little bit more structure at points as well as an editorial pass on the lettering. All in all, Champ is an interesting character study that takes the reader on a roller coaster of madness that I appreciated. It's not a typical comic and so typical comic fans may be turned off by its nuance, but there's something endearing in this insanity.