Dynamite Entertainment 2018
Written by John Lyman (the Flirty Angel)
Illustrated by Joe Eisma (the Brainy Angel)
Coloured by Celeste Woods (the Tough Angel)
Lettered by Taylor Esposito (the Second-Season Replacement Angel)
The Angels are back, baby! —The original Angels, Jill, Kelly and Sabrina! Travel back to the swingin’ 70s, and revisit the butt-kicking, crime-fighting, mold-breaking lady detectives who took 70s TV by storm, ready to do the same to comics 40 years later! Break out your bell-bottoms, feather your hair, and jump back to an era of peanut-farmer presidents, gargantuan gas-guzzlers and foxy female detectives… for a globe-trotting adventure that’s simply too big and epic for the 70s-era boob tube.
I loved every gosh darn minute of this issue totally and completely. Just the fact that this starts off with the original cast of characters from the show I grew up with brings me untold joy. While the new feature films were nice and all they weren’t the same and left me feeling like the essence of what it was about was lost. So it is clearly evident that John was a fan of the series and the characterisation he provides is proof positive of that.
The way that this book is structured is spectacular. The opening catches the eye like the show would have and then the credits roll as we go back to the beginning and see how the case started. The ebb & flow of the story is familiar, comforting and totally what you expect it to be. The Angels go out on a case for a client and turns into something much larger than anyone expected not exactly the hour long program but hey this is comics and no one said they had to do one and done issues. I love multiple issues stories more so when arcs bleed into one another.
I do like that we are keeping in tradition and not showing Charlie’s face. The back of his head is okay and the fact that I will always hear John Forsythe’s voice when I read his dialogue is music to my ears. Then there’s Bosley and we know that he’s there just for show and a behind the scenes guy who makes sure that everyone’s paid and that if there are any legal questions arise that kind of stuff. So that he is actively involved in the case is somewhat surprising but okay he’s still the stuffy suit who tries to call the shots, gets overruled and ends up letting things play out like they should.
Alright for Joe because while I can still his signature style here he’s evolved what he’s bringing to the table and doing some really fine work. I mean we know who the players are based on hair styles and gender so it’s no biggie that they don’t look dead on their real life counterparts. I like the linework that we see here and it amazes me that he finds such inventive ways of keeping the backgrounds at bay. I do like the 70’s outfits and hope he’s using like an old Sears catalogue to see how accurate he’s getting them. I love how the page layouts are being utilised and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels shows off how well his eye for storytelling has gotten so good!
This is perfect and I am not ashamed to say that. There are a few tongue in cheek moments about what’s happening in the world today thrown into the mix if you pay attention. The pacing and the way we see the revelations here is marvellous as is the characterisation level throughout. Dynamite is fantastic at taking these franchises and bringing them to life in comic book form, the Bionic duo for example. This is why I love Dynamite and I keep religiously supporting their work because they have this finger on the pulse of what we need right now.