American Gothic Press 2018
On Sale Dec 5th 2018
Written by Dagen Walker & Joseph Ettinger
Illustrated by Marc Rene
Coloured by Dennis Calero
Lettered by Jenn Pham
Kevin and Jose are twenty-something hipsters crusing through life in a fancy car, drinking at bars and chatting about nothing, except when their mysterious employer sends them on errands that may involve killing people. More often they're expected to just clean up after the excitement is over. But a deranged cop's personal investment in the organization they work for is about to change everything.
Now we all know that I am a fan of smaller press companies and thus far I haven’t been disappointed by anything they’ve done. This time around they are teaming up Echo Lake Entertainment to bring us the first of their collaborations. So far so good this does what a first issue is supposed to do it captures the attention of the reader creating that mystery and intrigue about the relationship of all the characters we meet. Then it gets going and suddenly a slew of new questions arise and then we are left with bated breath wondering how soon the next issue is going to be out. A really phenomenal first issue to a series let alone a story.
The opening is extremely eye catching and somewhat disturbing on so many levels. Normally a naked woman would be something of beauty, if drawn right, here however we see someone who doesn’t even seem human any longer. She’s much more patchwork than anything else and I am leaving it at that. Still the fact that everything that we see of her here shows us what kind of woman she is is noteworthy. You will understand her and you will know where she stands but we won’t know how she became this way and that’s key.
I am really impressed with the way that this book is structured. It has a great flow to it and they manage to create this really exceptional dynamic between the characters whom are introduced. We see bits and pieces and then your mind kind of extrapolates data that we aren’t privy to yet and so suddenly before you realise it’s even happened is that you are a part of the story. They’ve got you hook, line and sinker my friends and ya know what that’s okay. From the limited exposure to these characters all of whom we have absolutely no idea of what is behind their motives are fleshed out just enough to give them personality but reveal absolutely nothing about them. Frustrating or brilliant that’s up for you to decide but where my opinion lies.
Marc and Dennis do some really amazing work on the interiors here. That opening with Hanin gave me the shudders. The linework here is beautiful to see and the attention to detail is great, though shame on you all for leaving out the letterer on the marquee. I cannot stress enough how well done this is and seeing hairstyles where the hair feels like it moves and not stationary cannot be understated (I wanted to say I’m not going to be ignored Dan). The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels shows off a solid eye for storytelling. I like the way backgrounds are utilised there are times where I wish we’d see more, the bar for example all that brown wasn’t pleasant. Overall however the look, tone and feel of what we see is amazingly well done.
Well this is off to a raucous start and this is the kind of exceptional storytelling that I have come to expect from American Gothic Press. There should still be time to make your local shoppe orders this for you and I highly suggest that you do.