Dynamite Entertainment 2020
Written by Anthony Del Col
Illustrated by Joe Eisma
Coloured by Salvatore Aiala
Lettered by Crank!
Is Nancy Drew really dead? Is she still alive? Joe and Frank Hardy dive deeper into what exactly happened the night of Nancy’s death and discover something much deeper at play. Check out the continuation of this much-buzzed series, for Nancy Drew fans new and old (and viewers of the popular CW series).
After the cliffhanger ending of the last issue I couldn’t wait for this one to come out! Oh boy we are not disappointed in the least, even with the whole Covid-19 issues. I am in complete love with this book and the fact that it includes the Bobbsey’s is just beyond any kind of expectations I could have had. Now how I am expecting to see a Bobbsey Twins arc coming from you all, and The Three Investigators as well. I mean if this is the kind of quality work we can expect then I for one am all for it. It’s actually very refreshing to see this kind of book out on stands right now. While we love capes and powers there is this raw purity that comes from stories like this that are rarely seen and need to be.
The way that this is being told is really outstanding. The story & plot development we see moving forward through these pages by how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is darn near flawless. In some regards it feels exactly like I am reading a book from childhood or watching the old television program. It has the right amount of narration, story through conversation actions all woven seamlessly throughout. The character development is utterly amazing. Again through their interactions as well as the situations and circumstances we see before them and how they act and react to those really fleshes them out like normal, real-life, kids. The pacing is superb and as it takes us through the pages revealing the twists and turns along the way we see how well this book is not only structured but how it all works together to create this wonderful ebb & flow.
I am really impressed with how classic and yet thoroughly modern this story is already. I feel like these are the kids I have known all my life and to see that and realise it is some extraordinary storytelling.
Joe’s work on this is pretty stellar as well. He’s definitely grown and evolved as an artist while still maintaining a look that is his alone. The linework is strong when it has to be and soft when it’s called for. The way he’s able to utilise the varying weights and even techniques to bring out the attention to detail is beautifully done. That we see backgrounds utilised judiciously is nice to see as they provide depth perception, a sense of scale and that overall sense of size and scope to the book as well as enhance the moments we see. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a strong talented eye for storytelling. The colour work is nicely rendered as well. I appreciate the sepia hues and tones that we see for the backstory; it adds something unexpected and apropos to the book. With only spots of real colour it makes this a much Noir style story.
This is a dynamic, interesting and thought provoking look at the three of them. We see them all behaving exactly as we would envision and yet they have this brand new feel to them as well. With layers of subtext and ongoing sibling rivalry we see just what they mean to each other and what it is going to take to get them out from under the Syndicates bullseye.