Duecento anni dopo esser stata vittima di una strage in un cinema, Val continua a vagare per il mondo come spirito, spiando l'umanità mentre si avvia sempre più rapidamente verso la catastrofe definitiva.
Sesso e violenza sono insieme la causa e la reazione istintiva alla paura collettiva, e Val li osserva, impossibilitata ad agire, come tutti gli altri fantasmi che si muovono insieme a lei, fra cui un misterioso cowboy.
Solitudine, violenza, violenza nata dalla solitudine, impossibilità di agire; non c'è speranza in questa graphic novel.
Detto questo, io la profondità e l'innovazione me le sono perse.
L'unica netta impressione è che Vaughan abbia voluto caricare i due ingredienti principali per scioccare e sconvolgere il lettore - cosa che con me ha funzionato come al solito, annoiandomi a morte.
Ma non ho trovato profondità né nei personaggi, né nell'analisi di quello che sta facendo precipitare il mondo verso la fine; l'unico spunto interessante è come lo sparatore faccia parte di una sorta di movimento incel che vede nelle stragi precedenti un tetto di morti da superare, e come questo gruppo sia responsabile, in un costante crescendo, di attentati sempre più feroci duecento anni dopo. Forse è solo questa inarrestabilità della violenza, nata e nutrita nell'emarginazione di soggetti isolati se non per il web, l'unico elemento di vero interesse.
Ho trovato in compenso interessante come molti recensori della ARC su Netgalley dichiarassero di esser rimasti infastiditi dall'abbondanza di scene di sesso (che sì, sono tante, varie e probabilmente sfondano il limite della pornografia), ma nessuno abbia speso una parola sull'altrettanto esplicita violenza. Trovo affascinante come il sesso disturbi più della violenza, per quanto esplicita.

When Brian Vaughan announced he was going to be doing a free comic about sex and violence, with art from his Pride Of Baghdad collaborator Niko Henrichon (and if you know that graphic novel, you'll know why the newsletter in which they published it was called Exploding Giraffe), it was very much a 'where do I sign?' offer. Since then it's been a long, strange, and yes, frequently explicit ride. More than anything, though, a melancholy one. After the early chapters, only ghosts are in colour, the strange future in which they find themselves rendered in monochrome – a decision which obviously suggests The Wizard Of Oz or A Matter Of Life And Death, even as the story goes to places neither of them would have been able to touch. That greyness aside, the future is...well, lonely, often, and sometimes brutal, but also filled with the sort of incredible yet everyday technology we used to expect from our futures, so between that and the fact it's there at all, not utterly flooded and/or burned, these days I'd call it utopian, despite the way events start trending. And in a sense it's pretty utopian to have top comics creators willingly giving away a whole series for free; part of me suspects it will read considerably better collected than it did trickling out as two or three pages a week. But, much like the people it follows, I'm not brilliant with that level of deferred gratification. Although I'd debate how representative those characters are; at one stage, with another apparent apocalypse looming for the living, one ghost says to another how she enjoys watching the living get horny at times like this: "whenever the general population is unexpectedly confronted with their own mortality, they always return to the same thing". Which...either there are some significant exceptions to that rule, or a lot of people have been having a significantly more entertaining 2020s than me; thus far, this feels like it's been a much better decade for violence than sex. But then they so often are, aren't they? We talk about the world's oldest profession, but organisms that reproduce asexually still prey, so surely violence has been around longer, and all these eons later it remains so much easier to destroy than to create. And somehow so much easier to get our heads around, too: as one ghost says, "I probably had a few thousand orgasms in my life, and I still struggle to remember what a single one of them felt like. But I'll never forget exactly how it felt to get shot to death." Something which then ends up in a feedback loop with our cultural mores, so many places finding sex more taboo than violence, even though one is where almost all of us come from and the other is much more to be avoided. The existence of incel killing sprees has clearly influenced aspects of the plot, but unlike all the chuckleheads happy to blame the nasty interwebs for everything, Spectators knows the roots go back longer; the emotional core of the whole comic, I think, is in a particular scene with a VHS tape which, given Vaughan is about the same age as me, I strongly suspect could be autobiographical. And against those centuries of destructive conditioning, here he does his own small part to push back, with a sometimes strangely heartwarming tale of two ghosts just trying to find a threesome to spy on at the end of the world.
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Rereading almost in one sitting, thanks to Image having finally come back to Netgalley (oh joyous day), though whether this included the new spreads BKV has mentioned, I honestly couldn't say. Perhaps that just means they're very well integrated – though I did notice one page was duplicated in the ARC, even if that did make its grumpy cat even funnier. Certainly the themes and the symmetry come through more clearly this way, and I'm still more impressed at the worldbuilding for how much it stays in the background. A really impressive piece of work, and one I hope endures as it deserves, though the very forces it examines which will militate against its presence in libraries &c already seem stronger than five months ago.

This was an interesting read. I didnt not like it but it did take me a second to get into it. I feel like the back story was kinda pushed in instead of woven. There is a lot of violence/gore at the same time there is sexual content (but no sexual violence) - just FYI for possibly sensitive readers. I like Brain Vaughan and it feels pretty on brand with image comics. It was a fun read, kinda weird but also cool.

What if your entire afterlife started off with a bang? Most people are supposed to move on after such a traumatic ending, but that is not the case for Val. She spends her afterlife doing what she loved to do in life: watching others. In fact, you may say it is an obsession. What new episode may she spectate upon next? And will she always spectate alone?

This one is not for the prude, or those averse to violence.

However, I will say that Brian K. Vaughn has done it again with Spectators. He has sculpted an intriguing tale with interesting characters that keep you hooked til the end of the line. It is worth the read.

#ThxNetGalley #BrianK.Vaughan #Spectators

"Explicitly sexy and shockingly violent" is right! I was warned, and I have read from Brian K Vaughan before, but I must say I was caught a little off-guard when only handful of pages in we see our main character casually watching pornography in a cinema! It is definitely not something you'd want to read on public transport! Having said that, I did thoroughly enjoy this one! It was funny, sexy, violent, and tense - I could not put it down.

Kudos to artist Niko Henrichon, the visuals are absolutely STUNNING. Love the art style and the contrast between the black and white of the living versus the colour of the dead spectators.

3.75 *

This was an unusual read. Definitely not for the faint of heart. If you are sensitive to graphic sex and violence then I would warn you away from this one.

I have been an avid fan of Brian K. Vaughans work for quite some time ( Y: The Last Man being one of my all time favourite graphic novels) but Spectators didn’t quite hit the same as his previous works. The idea was compelling but the execution felt a bit lacking. While introspective at times, dare I say the parts without sex and violence were almost a little...boring. If that isn’t ironic, I don’t know what is.

We are introduced to our main character who is killed in a mass shooting as part of a lethal game called #leaderboard; a vicious game of who can kill the most people at one time, effectively ending with a ‘highscore’ on the #leaderboard. Despite being dead, our protagonist continues to spectate on human life for the foreseeable decades. The majority of the story takes place on a futuristic earth and Nico Henrichon’s art really brought this to life. The colour juxtaposition between the living and the dead was a Spec-tacular (Poor attempt at pun) idea.

Overall, the concept of ‘Spectators’ is very meta, with a break in the fourth wall which was actually very clever. The whole book revolves around the idea that people have a morbid fascination with watching sex and violence and by the end, you the reader, are just as complicit.

** I received a complimentary copy of this book from Image Comics via Netgalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

*Thanks to NetGalley and Image Comics for early copy for review*

Big fan of Y the last man and Saga, but this is not for me. If you like sex and nihilism then maybe this is for you. Gave it an extra star for the art or it would have got 1 star.

The concept and artwork of this was wonderful, but unfortunately it fell flat for me. It seemed quite focused on being sexual, and i think it could have done so much more and been a bit more interesting. But as I say, fantastic artwork

Thank you to NetGalley & Image Comics for an eARC of this graphic novel. All opinions are my own.

DNF @ 25%

I suppose the fault is my own, for not reading the description more closely. I was aware that this was 'erotic' but I have no experience in erotica in the form of graphic novel, and for some reason was not expecting the content to be so *graphic* (jokes on me). For me there was just way too much nudity in the actual images themselves for me to enjoy this, while the storyline to that point was actually pretty engaging and interesting, I just don't think I'm the right fit for this one.

I think a better audience would be those more comfortable with images of a graphic nature, both in the context of sexual imagery & gratuitous violence.

For a story that’s undeniably explicit in nature, SPECTATORS left me with an unexpected sense of quiet sadness. Brian K. Vaughan has this uncanny ability to take what seems like a provocative premise and turn it into something deeply introspective about the ties that bind us as people.

True to form, Vaughan delivers something incredibly readable—I powered through it in just a few sessions. The narrative spans a big, ambitious concept, but it’s executed with a refreshing simplicity. There aren’t tons of dramatic twists or edge-of-your-seat moments, which is kind of surprising given that mass death plays a major role (wild, I know). The world-building feels seamless, and the characters' motivations are clear without ever becoming overly complicated.

The characters are invested, but there’s a sort of resigned, almost zen attitude in how they face the events unfolding around them. That same mood rubbed off on me as a reader. It feels like the heart of the book is about how none of us get to choose the timing of our end. We all wish it’ll happen “the right way,” but in reality… things just happen. Thinking about it now, I’m not sure “sad” is the perfect word for it. Maybe it’s more of a tranquil feeling—but not the glossy, dreamlike peace we often imagine. More like a quiet acceptance, which has its own kind of weight.

And the artwork—wow. Niko Henrichon delivers visuals that perfectly match the somber tone of the story. There’s a raw, sketch-like texture to some of the panels that hits just right. The sheer commitment to doing this entire book in grayscale is mind-blowing, and Henrichon’s attention to detail, especially in the backgrounds, really deserves major praise. It’s all around impressive.

I’m genuinely looking forward to seeing the final print edition of this. It’s a great example of what can be achieved with independent publishing and full creative freedom. While it’s not my personal favorite Vaughan work, I’d still wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone in the mood for a fast-paced, steamy exploration of death and human nature.

I will not be picking up another volume of this one. The story was okay but the graphic sex and nudity was too much.