American Gothic Press 2017
Written by Tom Riordan
Illustrated by Marco Ferrari
Lettered by Marshall Dillon
In KILLBOX: LOS ANGELES, Timothy Choir, Sasha Rate, and Emi Nari rose to the top in a cutthroat killing game designed to curate human violence. But when the nature of the killbox was revealed to them, they went on the run. Now, the three fugitives seek help from the yakuza while three mysterious creatures are hot on their tail, and a new game begins in the City by the Lake…
I’ll say this much this has quickly become one of my favourite franchises. The first arc introducing us to this world was not standard fare once they all got to that church. This arc Tom isn’t wasting any time pushing that envelope he opened even further. To be honest I think I would’ve been more than happy if it were just that whole use the city as the game board and remove the pieces and be last man standing. The concept of the Killbox is great and it didn’t need bells and whistles, until we got them of course.
Tom does a great job here with the pacing and story development. The nature of the beast as it were is to move fast and furious, this is a competition and there are rules and a timer on things so it’s natural that it needs to be chop, chop, chop. So for that it’s extremely well done and that we learn as much as we do along with all the action that is a part of this blends perfectly. So while we get to Tim, Sasha and Emi continue onward with how they are back for more we also have a huge reveal this issue and it’s not what is to be expected.
Huge fan of this being in black and white, the interiors that is. Marco’s work keeps getting better and better and it’s a pure joy to see here. The linework is so sharp, smooth and brings all the little details to life with aplomb. The composition of pages and the layouts through angles and perspective are perfect to the eye. The backgrounds we see in play are just as detailed and impressive as the close up stuff, though i’d like to see more but that’s just me.
After those weird things were introduced last issue, the guys who are ultra creepy in the piggy masks, it’s only natural we want to know more about them. That they are as dangerous to those who want Emi dead as they are to anyone in this book is rather interesting. I mean they really didn’t discriminate last issue in who they killed. So while I still don’t know exactly what they are we do see who is behind them and that ups the intrigue factor greatly.
I like the characterisation and the character development as well. While we are getting to know our intrepid trio better we’re also introduced to new players in the game as well as some other familiar faces. I’m very impressed with the level of work that we see here it’s got everything going for it from a story standpoint. From the subject to the characters in it, it all has the same level of intensity and attention given to it to really set it apart from anything else on stands.
American Gothic Press has one of the best properties on their hands here.