Wednesday, January 9, 2013

The Classics - Leave It To Chance #1

For the life of me, I don’t know why Leave It To Chance wasn’t a huge hit.

Perhaps it was lost it the grim and gritty wave of comics that were common in 1996.

It was a series very much along the fanciful lines of Harry Potter (with perhaps a bit of Nancy Drew tossed in there), focusing on young Chance Falconer, a 14-year-old girl who dreams of following in her father's footsteps as an occult investigator.

Her dad has other ideas - but that doesn't stop her from seeking trouble on her own - so she finds herself in the middle of numerous adventures, hijinks and close scrapes, but never loses her optimistic spirit.

She’s a smart, funny character (who happens to have a pet dragon) - this comic had all the proper ingredients for a terrific series.

Written by James Robinson and drawn by Paul Smith, it was (and is) a pure delight and well worth tracking down. Robinson was riding high - this was published while he was working on the excellent Starman - and Smith spent years drawing the X-Men, and his work here is even more fantastic and light-hearted.

In a just universe, we'd be celebrating the 17th anniversary of this title - but we'll have to settle for the 13 excellent issues that were printed.

It would be nice to think that there'd always be room for well-crafted, warm-hearted adventure comics - but that's not always the case.

But for a couple of years - we had magic.

Highly recommended!

Grade: A

------------------

No comments: