
Self-Published 2020
Written by Jonathan Thompson
Illustrated by Rossano Piccioni
BURN RESIDUE...it is a three issue 32 page a piece crime story about Willy Boyd, a gas station attendant with 3rd degrees all over his body and the people who made him that way. It will launch Wednesday, Oct 28th on Kickstarter.
So the kickstarter hasn’t gone live yet and you might be wondering if you should back it, if you aren’t thinking that you should be thinking that. Well by the end of this I am hoping you’ll have your answer. Personally I love getting a chance to see books like this and it’s why whenever I am at a convention I hit artist alley and the small press section. This is where I find new talent, new creators and new projects that you all need to be aware of and this is one I would love to have. Every so often something comes along that surprises the heck out of you and it leaves an impression.
The way that this is being told is extremely interesting. How we see the story & plot development through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is incredible to see play out. I like the way that we see the interactions but even better is the narration leading into the past so we get a good deal of background information for this to make sense. Getting the opportunity to get to know Willy is a double edged sword and as things progress and the more we learn about him the more we want to see. The character development is amazing in this manner. The pacing is superb and as it takes us through the pages and reveals Willy and his world we get drawn deeper and deeper into it and want to go further still.
When we see the way this is structured and the layers within the story emerge it is easy to get swept up in this and read through it and feel like you know Willy. That we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow is really nicely done. This is witty, intelligent and smartly written, so much so that you have to give props to Jonathan for having the skill and talent to do something like this.
The interiors are nice. I know it is night time and it’s dark throughout the story but I feel like we are missing opportunities to see some really stellar detail work. The linework is thick and that takes away some of the detail but I will gladly admit that Rossano does indeed create a style that fits the story beautifully. Impressively enough I like the utilisation of backgrounds that we see here. They add a little extra to the moments and bring us this nice depth perception, sense of scale and that overall sense of size and scope of the book. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a solid eye for storytelling. The colour work is really nicely rendered and how we see the hues and tones within the colours utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work is extremely well done.
This is a great little book and I found myself enthralled by it a lot quicker than I was expecting to. It has solid writing that allows us into the main characters world where we can connect with him in some really interesting ways. I highly recommend that you find the kickstarter and back this project it is definitely worth it.