Ward of the State #1 Review

Title:	Ward of the State
Contributors:	Christopher E. Long Chee Yang Ong
Publisher:	Image Comics
Issue #:	1
Year:	2007
Pages:	32 Pages
Age Rating:	18 (Violence, Gore, Adult Themes)
Story Grade:	F
Art Grade:	F

Ward of the State is the exploitation comic book story of a group of foster kids under the care of a woman who is raising them all to be her personal cleaners... only not the type of cleaners that use Ajax and Comet. But this story was done much better with "The People Under the Stairs".

This story is filled with way too many exploitative stereotypes for my liking. We all know of and heard about bad foster care situations and bad foster kids in general, but this story takes all of that horror to an all new level.

The story starts with unrealistic quotes like "500,000 kids in the U.S. are in some form of foster care, when only about 397,000 actually are according to childrensrights.org. And yes, during the course of a year, 600,000 kids can be in and then out of foster care (within that same year), it isn't all at once.

While this doesn't sound like a huge difference in numbers, that difference, 100,000, represents the equivalent average size of a city in the United States, say Boulder, Colorado. The reason this irks me is that foster kids already have bad rap, and if you are going to quote statistics, quote them accurately and don't chose wording that makes your statistics have more impact.

Another statistic that irks me in this book is that kids in foster care are 30 times (3000 percent) more likely to become criminals as adults. The actual statistic according to azhope.org is that kids in foster care are 28% more likely to get arrested as an adult and 30% more likely to commit violent crimes than kids not in foster care. That's 30%, not 3000%. The writer really needed to have his math checked before this went to print, especially since it was written in a modern timeline, not in the future. And these statistics are on the first page of the book.

The story is dull. I feel nothing for any of the characters, kids or adults. The art is equally dull with wide gutters (the area between the panels) making particular scenes which could be tense lose their pace. Using a 8/9 panel per page layout doesn't help either. Stick to what works, 5 or less panels per page. Let the art speak... don't suffocate it in a tight space. Damn. Talk about dull.

I grade this book a solid F. The story is weak and uninviting. The characters aren't investment-worthy and the art and cramped and plain. And the statistics are 100% wrong.

Until next time... "All statistics on the internet are 100% accurate." ~Abraham Lincoln