Rain Werks 2019
Written by Sunshine Barbito
Illustrated by Debora Carita
Coloured by Mariacristina Federico
Lettered by Clem Robbins
The Marchesi brothers, Carlo, Matteo and Tommaso, are three first generation Sicilian Americans who, with their extended families, establish a Mafia family in Brooklyn, New York in the early 1900s. Nicoletta Marchesi is the youngest of Tommaso's five children, a precocious and beautiful eighteen year old who, unlike her two older sisters, is very much a tomboy and grew up always challenging her two older brothers at every turn. But when Nicoletta confronts her father Tommaso and announces her desire to join the family business alongside her brothers, crisis ensues.
This is a great introduction to a series. It's the 1920's and women were meant to be seen and not heard, their jobs were limited and depending on the type of family you came from you felt like a square peg forced into a round hole. That is certainly what I see when it comes to Nicoletta. The opening here with it's narration from her is sensational in how she believes she's seen and yet ironically enough it's a far cry from how we see her in this moment.
I really like the way that this is structured. There is a good solid pacing of the story & plot development going on here and the character development is just getting started. There is an aspect to the characterisation here that I am liking and while I don't want to say exactly what it is yet it is something that I am going to be keeping my eye on as it should be integral to Nicoletta's life and lifestyle down the road. If what I think I am seeing is what it is then oh boy Sunshine you may just be a mad genius.
Here's something that I talk about a lot, I am seeing things and my mind is engaged and I am thinking beyond what we see in the pages within. This means that I am invested already and that the level of the writing here is strong, well thought out and executed. There is a game plan here and right from the get go I feel as if the story is starting off with a bang and shows no sign that it plans on slowing down anytime soon. I like it, it's gang-busters and we already see that she's going to break any mould they try to put her into and she'll play by her own rules.
I like the interiors here as well. The linework is beautifully done and with its varying weights utilised in such a manner to create some really strong attention to detail this comes to life with aplomb. Plus the imagination and creativity on display here is marvellous as the fashions, the phones, the automobiles all of it shows that the research was done and they are as close to what they were as we can possibly hope for. Oh and thanks for the panel above the I and O because yeah. The characters too have their own distinct looks and personalities in their faces and I am huge fan of anyone who can do this at this level. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a really well tuned eye for storytelling. Backgrounds are utilised very well in how they expand the moments and bring a size and scope to the story. Plus that house on page ten that's masterpiece stuff. The colour work here is great as well. I like how the day and the night have different tones to the colour and taking that further through glass is exceptional stuff.
Right now this is on Kickstarter for around 40 hours yet and I'll link that here but let me say this, this is extremely fun, interesting, dynamic storytelling and it's just one of those that you never knew you needed in your life to you experience. No one said a strong female lead in a book had be a good girl just good at what she does, hopefully. Back this, support it and see why I am totally roving over it! This as good as they come a five star deal!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rainwerks/mafiosa?ref=nav_search&result=project&term=Mafiosa