A Tongue Twisting Storm That Comes To The Show Tonight: Review of Matt Fraction and Fábio Moon's CASANOVA: ACEDIA #1

Writer: Matt Fraction (“Nine Days Now”), Michael Chabon (“The Metanauts: Kawaii-Five O”)
Artist:  Fábio Moon (“Nine Days Now”), Gabriel Bá (“The Metanauts: Kawaii-Five O”)
Colors: Cris Peter
Letters: Dustin Harbin
Publisher: Image

KEITH SILVA: First came lust (Luxuria), followed by gluttony (Gula) and after, avarice (Avaritia) and now negligence/sloth (Acedia), so much divinity, so much comedy and so much love for sin(s). What precedes each of these funny-sounding Latin-y words — which, for those keeping score at home (nerds), are, truth be told, derived from a medieval regional Italian dialect, Tuscany to be specific — is … more Italian: Casanova. As both title and titular figure, each swings. Casanova Quinn is James Bond by another name; a character one might describe as “what every man would like to be and what every woman would like between her sheets” if such a phrase didn’t sound so outdated or reek of fifties sexism, but I digress.

Before Matt Fraction became a one man cottage industry for creator-owned passion projects (Sex Criminals,Satellite Sam and Ody-C) there was (there is) Casanova. Published by Image Comics in 2006, Casanova: Luxuria is where Fraction first slipped the shackles of his Marvel masters and their assembly-line of corporate cape comics to plant his own flag; to his credit, he brought along three inimitable artists — cartoonist Gabriel Bá, colorist Cris Peter and letterer Dustin Harbin — to give his espionage, sci-fi, adventure mash-up a cool factor of a cagillion and a sexiness that makes the most (and least) chaste, wet. Luxuria remains a masterpiece of wit, imagination and storytelling so tight as to appear painted on. Few comics are as fun, pure and uncut as Casanova: Luxuria.

The second and third chapters, Gula and Avaritia, respectively, never quite catch the first-time giddiness of theirpaterfamilias predecessor. How could they? Avaritia comes closest to the joy (the Fraction-y-ness) of its antecedent, a contact high, at best. As for Gula, well, frankly, it’s a mess of over-thinking, over-indulgence and smacks of trying-too-hard, a crystalline example of a sophomore slump. And … so … Acedia? … well, magic-eight-ball-wise, let’s say, ‘signs point to sexiness.’

Sitting in with Fraction et al. for Acedia is literary colossus and inveterate comic book fanboy, Michael Chabon who gets to punch below his weight class with Moon’s twin brother and the co-creator of Casanova, Gabriel Bá. Chabon and Bá (along with Peter and Harbin) contribute a back-up story about flashes of full frontal nudity, the rare bird known as the ‘rock critic’ and the power of rock-and-roll. Chabon, who until this point, gave good blurb on Casanovais the perfect foil for Fraction’s hyper-focused frippery. Chabon gets to pen the story of a member of the fierce female foursome, T.A.M.I. She brags about her on-stage turnout as no more than “three strands of black wire, two LED flashers and a titanium kotex,” so, yeah, Chabon gets it. As for Fraction …