Oni Press 2014
Written by Joshua Hale Fialkov
Illustrated & Lettered by Joe Infurnari
Flatted by Jason Fischer
Grady Potts for Senate! While Billy’s life has gone to shit, Grady’s seems to be on the rise. Seems a bit unfair, doesn’t it?
This issue Joe establishes himself in elite company as he manages to tell this story with few words relying solely upon his artwork to tell it. This was a masters class in visually telling the story through pictures. At no point in this story did I not know what was happening how the characters were feeling and what part of them was real and what was a dream.
Grady is definitely falling apart in jail as they believe him to be a bomber, an inept and stupid one but one nonetheless and his isolation not only in his cell but from the rest of the inmates has been taking it’s toll on his mental state. His hair, slouch, defeated look on his face and his posture demonstrate a man on the edge already having broken and ready to just explode with the entirety of what’s happened since finding the Bunker.
There’s also something both special and creepy that we see Grady in colour while his surrounding as so lifeless and dull it just seems to add something to the drama of what’s going on here. I’m just in awe and marveled by what Joe’s done here it really has this emotional tug of war going on inside me as a reader that’s extremely rare to experience.
I would love to have seen Joshua’s reaction to sending him the script that just mainly held direction of what’s happening and letting Joe run wild with it and then seeing the end result. If you’ve never read an issue of this series than A. shame on you and B. this is a perfect issue to experience and understand why it’s so well received and talked about by people in the know than you can decide for yourself if it’s something worth pursuing, though personally I urge you to do just that it’s hard to be disappointed by this series.
It’s one of the most consistently well written and illustrated books on stands today.