Mötley Crüe: The Dirt: Declassified (2023)

Mötley Crüe: The Dirt: Declassified (2023)

Author: Leah Moore | Illustrators: David Cabeza (with John K Snyder III / Patricio Delpeche / Armitano / Vasilis Lolos) | Page Count: 160

 

"I don't have time for this shit!"

It's not the first time that members of Mötley Crüe have been seen in a comic book format, but, as far I know, they've not been depicted as undercover government operatives before now. That's the premise. I shit you not. And things don't get any better from there.

The story sees the band reforming, but it's a front so that they can tour specific locations and investigate why teenage music fans are turning into 'zombies'.

Something that ridiculous must be a clever allegory, right? Perhaps a satirical commentary on the music business and its treatment of fans? Maybe it is. I'm certain it was meant to be silly fun, not taken seriously, but my feeling was that it was an ineptly written mess that lacked any redeeming subtext whatsoever.

The plotting is absolute shit. It jumps from the present to the past, including to a number of historically notable eras (e.g., Berlin, 1989, in which Mötley Crüe have a hand in bringing down the Berlin Wall). The activities in the past have no real bearing on the present. As far as I could tell, their primary function was to add more pages because more pages equals more value for money, right? No. More pages equals more waste of paper, ink, glue, etc. And of time. The reader's time, that is. If I was to have a TL;DR it would echo that: The Dirt: Declassified is an unmitigated waste of resources and time.

I've been a fan of Mötley Crüe's music for over 30 years, so I knew what to expect with regards the band's treatment of groupies and what some folks would term 'offensive' language, etc, but I didn't expect a book that ought to have gone through spellchecking prior to publication to have so many grammar errors. Standards at Z2 Comics were rarely good, but the book is a new low.

To add insult to injury, Z2's RRP for the standard edition is $24.99! Hopefully they use some of their unwarranted profit to pay for a better writer and some extra proofreading next time. [1]

At time of writing, for just $15 US dollars more you can own Crücial Crüe - The Studio Albums 1981-1989 on CD, which is a boxset that contains the band's five best albums. (It's £39.99 in the UK.) They're shitty digipaks and in all probability are the remastered versions of some — I don't own it to check —  but that's still better than reading The Dirt: Declassified even once.

[1]  I paid £10.54 ($13.32), which is still more than it deserves. And I acknowledge that there may be multiple grammar errors in this post, but I'm a mere hobbyist who writes thoughts on a page for pleasure not profit. The two things are very different. If I was asking for money in return for a reader's time, I'd sure as hell get an actual professional to check it over.