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Pounded
In a city filled with trust-fund babies and armchair revolutionaries, Heavy Parker rules the punk scene as a benevolent dictator. He sings lead in a local hardcore band. He puts out zines, pseudo-revolutionary material, and flypost propaganda about town. It's good to be king. Or at least it is until Missy, Heavy's girlfriend, goes away for college. How can a guy like Heavy be expected to handle a long-distance romance? Short answer: He can't. Missy is out of sight and Heavy's mind is already drifting towards his next sexual conquest. A king can't be expected to live without a queen. But can he maintain his throne when Missy returns, reborn as a true NYC punk and pissed as all hell? Can Heavy survive a true group of hardcores invading his turf or will he just wind up POUNDED? This new trade paperback collects the critically acclaimed three-issue miniseries by Brian Wood (COUSCOUS EXPRESS, CHANNEL ZERO) and Steve Rolston (QUEEN & COUNTRY, MEK).
96 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2002
47 people want to read
About the author
Brian Wood
1,174 books961 followersBrian Wood's history of published work includes over fifty volumes of genre-spanning original material.
From the 1500-page future war epic DMZ, the ecological disaster series The Massive, the American crime drama Briggs Land, and the groundbreaking lo-fi dystopia Channel Zero he has a 20-year track record of marrying thoughtful world-building and political commentary with compelling and diverse characters.
His YA novels - Demo, Local, The New York Four, and Mara - have made YALSA and New York Public Library best-of lists. His historical fiction - the viking series Northlanders, the American Revolution-centered Rebels, and the norse-samurai mashup Sword Daughter - are benchmarks in the comic book industry.
He's written some of the biggest franchises in pop culture, including Star Wars, Terminator, RoboCop, Conan The Barbarian, Robotech, and Planet Of The Apes. He’s written number-one-selling series for Marvel Comics. And he’s created and written multiple canonical stories for the Aliens universe, including the Zula Hendricks character.
From the 1500-page future war epic DMZ, the ecological disaster series The Massive, the American crime drama Briggs Land, and the groundbreaking lo-fi dystopia Channel Zero he has a 20-year track record of marrying thoughtful world-building and political commentary with compelling and diverse characters.
His YA novels - Demo, Local, The New York Four, and Mara - have made YALSA and New York Public Library best-of lists. His historical fiction - the viking series Northlanders, the American Revolution-centered Rebels, and the norse-samurai mashup Sword Daughter - are benchmarks in the comic book industry.
He's written some of the biggest franchises in pop culture, including Star Wars, Terminator, RoboCop, Conan The Barbarian, Robotech, and Planet Of The Apes. He’s written number-one-selling series for Marvel Comics. And he’s created and written multiple canonical stories for the Aliens universe, including the Zula Hendricks character.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
June 17, 2017
God, in 2002 we must have been DESPERATE for stories with women in them, because I can think of no other way this passes muster today.
- The intro is a page long ad for the introductionist's own comic. The gist is, Pounded doesn't have enough dick-stirring sex in it. His comic does. Read his comic. His boner, and yours, is very important. (It isn't.)
- Vancouver only recently (in 2008) raised their age of consent laws, from 14 to 16. Our 20-something protagonist still gives off a distinct whiff of Creeper in "cherry popping" (ugh) our 17 year old heroine.
- Speaking of our 17 year old heroine, she moves to NYC, finds out her BF is cheating on her, then revamps everything about herself in order to become his perfect arch-nemesis AND return to Vancouver to wreck his apartment? Having been a seventeen year old, no. No one is coming back from NYC to Vancouver to enact crosscoastal revenge fantasies. Which is all this miniseries really is. And not a very good one, at that.
- Heavy is terrible. Is that the point? He's living the high (low) life off a trust fund, and is completely unprepared to deal with the realities of the lifestyle that he emulates. So, yes. He is, in fact, a poser.
- But then he goes to prison and learns the benefits of a half assed apology, one that will enable him to keep on keeping on the lifestyle to which he's accustomed?
This was a serious waste of my time. And yours.
- The intro is a page long ad for the introductionist's own comic. The gist is, Pounded doesn't have enough dick-stirring sex in it. His comic does. Read his comic. His boner, and yours, is very important. (It isn't.)
- Vancouver only recently (in 2008) raised their age of consent laws, from 14 to 16. Our 20-something protagonist still gives off a distinct whiff of Creeper in "cherry popping" (ugh) our 17 year old heroine.
- Speaking of our 17 year old heroine, she moves to NYC, finds out her BF is cheating on her, then revamps everything about herself in order to become his perfect arch-nemesis AND return to Vancouver to wreck his apartment? Having been a seventeen year old, no. No one is coming back from NYC to Vancouver to enact crosscoastal revenge fantasies. Which is all this miniseries really is. And not a very good one, at that.
- Heavy is terrible. Is that the point? He's living the high (low) life off a trust fund, and is completely unprepared to deal with the realities of the lifestyle that he emulates. So, yes. He is, in fact, a poser.
- But then he goes to prison and learns the benefits of a half assed apology, one that will enable him to keep on keeping on the lifestyle to which he's accustomed?
This was a serious waste of my time. And yours.
August 3, 2007
The end was such a letdown. SUCH a letdown. Ugh.
July 4, 2012
The artwork in this comic is excellent. The story and characters leave much to be desired. Couldn't really get into it, no matter how I tried.
February 2, 2021
"pounded" riesce nella simpatica impresa di radunare per una storia un gruppo eterogeneo di stronzi tale da mettere a dura prova la mia pazienza: sul serio, la tentazione di mandare personaggi e storia affanculo comincia dalla prima pagina e prosegue fino alla fine (tavole degli ospiti incluse).
se si ha pazienza e si arriva alla fine la storia è anche divertente, tra le righe c'è una discreta conoscenza della scena hc e dei suoi luoghi comuni e ci sono -in una storia aggiunta in appendice- anche gli slapshot, discreta leggenda punk americana.
(epperò: ma hanno tradotto con "sono un tipo retto" un paio di "i'm straight"? capisco non sapere cosa sia lo straight edge, ma in caso di dubbi su come tradurre una frase -una battuta, per di più!- basterebbe una ricerchina con google, eh...)
se si ha pazienza e si arriva alla fine la storia è anche divertente, tra le righe c'è una discreta conoscenza della scena hc e dei suoi luoghi comuni e ci sono -in una storia aggiunta in appendice- anche gli slapshot, discreta leggenda punk americana.
(epperò: ma hanno tradotto con "sono un tipo retto" un paio di "i'm straight"? capisco non sapere cosa sia lo straight edge, ma in caso di dubbi su come tradurre una frase -una battuta, per di più!- basterebbe una ricerchina con google, eh...)
December 3, 2021
It's short and there's not a lot to it. I enjoyed it a lot when I was more into Brian Wood, but allegations against him years back have definitely taken the shine off of this book. Rolston's charming art and Wood's usually outstanding graphic design really save the book from being completely uninteresting.
June 21, 2024
Below average in many aspects!
The story doesn't have much to offer nor does it makes much sense.
The story doesn't have much to offer nor does it makes much sense.
September 2, 2016
Heavy Parker has it made. Penthouse in Vancouver. Punk rock band. Teenage cheerleader girlfriend. So what if the penthouse is a trust fund, and he doesn't know the first thing about punk rock? The money's good, and the party's fine. Then he upsets the wrong person, and it looks like the ride's going to end. When the bleep gets real, what is there really to Heavy Parker? I've spent a lot of time trying to come up with what to compare this book to. It's kind of like Scott Pilgrim, if Scott was more realistic, and treated Knives worse. Or it's like Eastbound and Down, if Kenny Powers had been a mid to late twenties rocker. The problem is, neither of those are stories I'd particularly want to read. For the first two acts, Wood plays Parker with a touch of absurdity, so the reaction from the reader is something between "what is he going to do next?" and "god, what an asshole." He behaves poorly, he gets comeuppance. Then the end is... meh. Kudos to Steve Roulston, the artist. It's really nice to see a backdrop that's recognizably Vancouver in a comic.
October 8, 2007
I've been trying to get into Brian Wood's work now, for about the last year and still haven't quite figured out his appeal. Wood's books are built on some great ideas, but the execution usually loses steam in the final act. The characters, while cogs amongst a great plotlines fail to develop into fully realized characters with any dimension. Despite these structural flaws, I've continued to pick-up his work, so Wood must be doing something appealing.
Pounded, one of Wood's early works is humorous take on a poseur with punk pretensions who gets a pounding after his slighted girlfriend returns to town.
A fun book, that never takes itself too seriously, takes a unexpected turn and resolves itself too quickly and neatly in its final act.
Steve Rolston's art compliments the material and hopefully will team up with Brian Wood in the future.
Pounded, one of Wood's early works is humorous take on a poseur with punk pretensions who gets a pounding after his slighted girlfriend returns to town.
A fun book, that never takes itself too seriously, takes a unexpected turn and resolves itself too quickly and neatly in its final act.
Steve Rolston's art compliments the material and hopefully will team up with Brian Wood in the future.
November 3, 2015
I found this at Value Village in Abbotsford of all places. I thought it was a great snapshot of Vancouver and a certain aspect of punk rock in the early 20 aughts. The protagonist is a horrible POS. But that is just like myself and so many other male punks at that point in time. It made me reflect on my behaviours towards women at that time in my life. I can't really claim to have been a whole lot better of a person than he was. At least I have learned from some of my mistakes. The art was great. It made me super nostalgic for venues featured, which no longer exist (The Starfish Room, The Pic). Overall, I'm glad a came across it. I'll probably give it another read some years down the line. It's not like it took more than an hour's worth of my time.
November 30, 2008
This was an interesting little GN to read. Heavy Parker is a punk rock poseur who breaks a girl's heart as she's leaving for art school; she returns a year later as a "real punk" to get her revenge.
The only problem with this is that I didn't really like any of the main characters. There was one secondary character (a reporter at a local magazine) who was interesting, but the rest just seem like whiny, shallow idiots, which I don't think was Wood's intent. Maybe if this had been a longer story, they could have been developed better and the whole thing would have been improved.
The only problem with this is that I didn't really like any of the main characters. There was one secondary character (a reporter at a local magazine) who was interesting, but the rest just seem like whiny, shallow idiots, which I don't think was Wood's intent. Maybe if this had been a longer story, they could have been developed better and the whole thing would have been improved.
November 17, 2012
Picked this up from a pile of free books on the sidewalk. This is my first graphic novel so maybe I just dont get it but it didn't have much of a plot....or real ending,..at all. Kinda lame in my opinion. Not worth paying for, but some good illustrations all the same.
May 27, 2010
comics,alt,punk
September 26, 2011
Picked this up today at Word On The Street Festival at the Vancouver Library. Cool idea, but I wanted more revenge.
August 30, 2012
Fans of Scott Pilgrim would like this ... and Wood's right, EVERYONE knows a Heavy Parker, which makes it so funny.
September 5, 2012
Liked it quite a lot, especially the art. The punk rock angle was not too over the top and never felt desperate to be cool (my main fear when I started the book).
March 21, 2014
I think I expected something else.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews