Dynamite Entertainment 2020
Written by Karla Pacheco
Illustrated by Vincenzo Federici
Coloured by Rebecca Nalty
Lettered by Becca Carey
Stunning starlet Bettie Page has signed on to a new “tastefully sensual” fantasy film, shooting on a secluded tropical island. But when one of her cast members is MURDERED, everyone on the island is a suspect! WHO is the killer? WHAT is the film’s producer hiding? HOW do they get off the island? You’ll have to read to discover WHODUNNIT…!
I’ve known that Bettie was an icon basically all my life but I was never that into her ya know. It wasn’t until Dynamite started doing these volumes that I discovered just how awesome she is and was. If you haven’t checked these out then you really need to, because they are smartly written, entertaining, engaging and just a gosh darn hoot! Plus it will give you the desire to look her up and see what her life was all about. She was a pin-up goddess and she reigned uncontested for a lot of our troops overseas. As beautiful, mysterious and captivating as Marilyn Monroe, Bettie was and still is an inspiration for artists, fashion designers and hairdressers alike.
I love, love, love the way that this is being told. While each arc is within the same life or timeline with each other they are completely stand alone arcs. Though it is nice to see Captain Connelly again and while he’s making another appearance their relationship is easily explained here. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented extremely well. Finally we are seeing a story where she’s not doing that secret agent (man-- yes you are singing that) gig and she’s just another wannabe actress. This leads me to the character development that we see here. There are a few universal truths, Bettie is far from stupid or being naïve and neither is she shy or a wallflower, okay be a bit introverted, so to see her in this issue is absolutely delicious! The dialogue and the way we see them react and act to the situations and circumstances that stand in their way. The pacing is superb and as it takes us through the pages revealing the twists and turns along the way we see just how well the book is structured as well as how it all works together to create the ebb & flow for the story.
I love the interiors here. The only real criticism that I have is that we need to see more backgrounds. The island backdrop begs to be seen. The linework is great and seeing how the varying weights are utilised to create the detail work we see is really well done. A few more techniques would be nice but this is modern comic book style. I am particularly impressed with the faces and facial expressions that we see throughout the book. The way they convey almost everything we need to know about the characters from the resting bitch face to the downright sneers what we see is amazing at furthering the characterisation. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a great eye for storytelling. I rather like the colour work that we see here as well. How we see the various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work is really nicely rendered. More so when we see how the colours are muted by a skoch by a mirror, this is impressive work people.
This is one the most underrated and overlooked books and there is absolutely no reason whatsoever why that is. I would very much like to challenge all of you to pick this up, order it if ya have to, and then tell me precisely what you thought of it, even if you don't want to admit that this is one of the better books you’ve read for this week.