Heavy Metal 2020
Created & Written by Dan Fogler & Laurence Blum
Illustrated & Lettered by Ben Templesmith
FishKill is a love story wrapped in a modern noir that takes our hero, Detective Bart Fishkill, so far down the conspiracy rabbit hole that he starts to question his own sanity even to the point of wondering whether if he isn’t the villain in the first place.
This wasn’t on my radar and while I have reviewed a few series from Heavy Metal in the past I don’t really work with them, which I’d love to change to that. So I stumbled across this and was intrigued I mean when does Ben Templesmith on interiors not intrigue someone? Turns out this is kind of warped, twisted and so off the rails that you cannot help but enjoy it. I’m not sure how many folks think of comic books when they think of Heavy Metal but you really should. I have yet to be disappointed in a comic I have read from them.
I am thoroughly enjoying the way that this is being told. 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. The character development is where all the fun is here. What we see of Bart, Bartholomew, Fishkill is absolutely phenomenal and as I see it this is the driving force behind the story itself. Half the time it’s like we don’t need a narrator because he’s actually speaking aloud giving this amazing play by play, some of which earns him an intense dislike from his colleagues. The pacing is superb and as it takes us through the pages revealing the world, the characters and the events we see it is easy to see how everything works together to create the story’s ebb & flow.
There is something about this that strikes a chord within me and it’s not because of anything we see in the traditional sense. I mean I’m not a cop, but I’ve dated a few, and they happen to be their special kind of crazy. While the book is extremely well structured I think it’s the lack of subplots or layers within the story that we normally see that has gotten my attention. This is Bart’s story and for better or for worse the man came home from war, joined the NYPD and suffers PTSD in ways many of us cannot understand. The near simplicity of the storytelling is powerful and it captures and holds your attention and imagination beautifully.
The interiors here are absolutely amazing and I expect no less from Ben. The way that he’s able to really put so much emotion into the characters and how he can create the overall ambiance, mood and atmosphere is beyond my comprehension. It is weird and strange to me how some of these images shouldn’t work as they are distorted beyond reason and yet here we are unable to look away, fascinated by that which we see. The detail work is sensational and how we see this augmented with the colour is stupid good. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective show such a masterful eye for storytelling. The colour work is gorgeous! How we see the various hues and tones within the colours utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work is brilliantly rendered. Also the neon effect is divine and then of course when there is this swirled effect it feels like a museum painting and all of this together really makes this book pop.
What an absolute unexpected treat of a read this is. This is why I search out titles that I am unfamiliar with and why I think that we follow some creators' work regardless of who is publishing it. Heavy Metal has a very nice tradition of publishing some great stories that you wouldn’t have the opportunity to see anywhere else.