Jinxworld 2018
Created & Written by Brian Michael Bendis
Created & Illustrated by Michael Gaydos
Lettered by Joshua Reed
PEARL is the story of an exceptional tattoo artist and accidental assassin for one of the modern-day San Francisco Yakuza. She was born into one life, but another is calling to her. When Pearl accidentally meets one of her peers, her doppelgänger from another clan, she starts to dream of a better life. But Pearl has a very special ability that keeps pulling her back into the violent world she is desperate to escape.
I think I picked this up more as a curiosity than anything else, plus it has a blank cover variant and I do love having original artwork on these to display. It has been a while since Alias was on shelves and quite honestly that was one of the more amazing runs in comics in the past 20 years. So when Brian is on he’s on and there is no one quite like him and once again without a character with a past or that comes with restraints he gets to create a new character, the world she lives in and chronicles the life she dictates. This isn’t a case of hey let’s create this new character and this is what she’ll do no Brian has a way that I haven’t seen since Wolfman in the 80’s where the character dictates where she goes and Bendis is merely her instrument in voicing it.
I love the way that this book is structured and how we kind of start off in the middle of Pearl’s life at the crux of something big about to happen. I think the opening is brilliant and catches our attention and introduces us to the characters in just the right way. Anyone with a tattoo will tell you that depending on placement and subject you will get stopped by random strangers who admire the work. In this instance Iriguci is a modern day master and legend in the tattoo world and to get a piece by him or even know who he is well it’s kind of like a badge of honour in an exclusive club.
From that moment on everything seems to happen in this whirlwind kind of way that keeps us on the edge of our seats, mouth agape and wondering what the hell is going on! Suddenly Pearl is at Pearl Ink, she has a tattoo parlour, she’s got a mentor and they talk so easily about guns, shooting and the like that it almost freaks me out. I have to say the flashback here is used exquisitely to give us some background on Pearl and a blonde Asian tattoo artiste well that isn’t commonplace let me tell ya so any information we may garner throughout this issue is welcome.
Sweet Chelsea Pearl Necklace what Michael does with the interiors here is truly outrageous! I mean the attention to detail and the realism to what we see is utterly and amazingly impressive and then we get to his back and holy mother effin mackerel that hits you like a ton of bricks. Pearl is lovely enough but to see Rick as this charming, cute and effervescent young man I totally feel like these are destined like Romeo & Juliet. The utilisation of page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels shows off such a talented eye for storytelling that I am in awe.
Overall assessment is this, once again the boys have created a character unlike any other and she’s going to be all the rage for the duration of her shelf life and then some. This blew me away by the level of quality work that we see here.