The Review
The book is narrated by the main character and, as such, has
his own speech patterns and slang thrown in. It starts by telling you that it's
a story about boys, that the mob executes a girl, and you think you know where
it's going (a la John Wick). Except it doesn't. The tough guy also gets killed.
But instead of going to meet his girl in the afterlife, he gets shunted to some
kind of purgatory-like city outside time and space and he becomes a
"heavy." A tough that goes to various timelines/alternate realities
and rights the ship. Through violence.
The book starts at one minor such instance (him beating up a
bully in a… high school? Doesn’t really matter. It only exists in the book to
show how Bill deals with issues he’s sent to resolve. Then he comes back to the
office, gets his next mission, meets some side characters, establishes that
he’s a solo when heavies normally work in pairs, and he just wants to do enough
so that he can move on to see his girl.
He finally concedes to get a partner at the end of this
issue and the big reveal of who it is where the issue ends.
If you’re okay with some mature content in your comic book reading,
I recommend this book.
High Point(s)
How much is covered and established in the first issue
without feeling rushed at all
The ending takes the story from, “this is fun” to, “oh boy!”
Low Point(s)
The overuse of bolding words (sometimes seeming at random)
throughout the book
The Editing
The Covers
The cover does a lot of things right. It shows you the main
character looking like a dark anti-hero all greyscale with guns, but it's
juxtaposed on this rainbow kingdom/pastel colored background with this cute little
cherub flying around the smoke coming out of the pistol showing the unique
concept of this story. Additionally, the actual layout of the cover keeps your
eyes on the cover with directional aids. The pistol brings your eyes down, but
the bright smoke from the end brings you back up to the cherub, which leads to
the architecture that swoops back up to the other gun, which leads into the
issue number and title, which brings you back to the main character, which
brings you back to the pistol, etc.
Page One
Panel 1 – No idea what’s going on in this panel. It looks
like two boys together. I thought the main character might be gay, but later
it’s repeatedly established that he had a wife.
Panel 6 – The narration box is a little too close to the panel border.
Page Three
Panel 2 & 5 – Remove all the bold from the dialog
bubbles.
Panel 3 – “Even” reads weird in this bubble. Or at least
remove the bold.
Page Four
Panel 1 – The only thing that could do with being bold in
this panel is “parent’s wedding!”
Panel 5 – “Else” doesn’t need to be bold
Page Five
The only thing that could do with being bold on this page is
“Leonardo Da Vinci” and “this” in the first panel and “do” in the fifth panel.
Everything else reads fine or better without the extra emphasis.
Page Six & Seven
The only thing that could do with being bold on this page is
“the big wait” in the second narration box and “maybe” in the ninth.
Page Eight
Panel 1 & 2 – Could pull the narration boxes a little
further from the panel border like the ones in the last two panels on the page.
Page Nine
Panel 4 – Could remove all the bold from this panel. If
something must be bolded, keep “don’t” and/or “getting murdered,” but I don’t
think it’s needed.
Page Ten
The only things that could do with being bold are “ain’t” in
the first panel, “married” in the second, and “fun” in the fifth.
Page Thirteen
The only things that could do with being bold are
“privileged” in the second panel. All of DaVinci’s dialog is exhausting to read
because of the constant bolding.
Panel 1 – The locating text and the footnote should have a
different format/setup from the normal narration boxes.
Page Fifteen
Panel 3 – Unbold "steampunk." "I assume"
probably doesn't need to be bolded either, but it's not awful.
Panel 5 & 6 – Remove all the bold from the text. You
could keep “alive” and “five minutes” bold in panel 5 if you must.
Page Sixteen
Remove all the bold from the text except “do” in the fifth
narration box.
Page Seventeen
Remove all the bold from the text except “Slim” in the first
panel, and the first “me” in the fifth panel.
Page Eighteen
Remove all the bold from the text except “I kill.”
Page Nineteen
Remove the bold from the two phrases from this page. You
could keep “Jiminy Cricket” in the last panel bold if required.
Page Twenty
Panel 1 & 2 – Remove all the bold from the text
Panel 6 – Remove all the bold from the text except “out”
Panel 8 – Remove all the bold from the text except “good
guy”
Page Twenty-one
Panel 1 – The locating text and the footnote should have a different format/setup from the normal narration boxes. Remove the bold from “was”
Panel 2 – Nothing in this needs to be bold
Panel 3 – Unbold everything except “really,” “fuck,” and
“respect.”
Panel 5 – The last dialog bubble from Kyle makes her seem a
little more immature than has been established in this issue. The whole panel
works well without it.
Page Twenty-two
Remove all the bold from the text on this page except
"Months?" in panel 1 and "fine" in panel 2.
Panel 7 – If more bold text is truly desired, then
“daughter” was a missed opportunity to be bold
Page Twenty-three
Panel 1 – The locating text should have a different
format/setup from the normal narration boxes.
Remove the bold from “said” and add it to “one”.
Additionally, the first condition doesn’t follow the same format as the other
two conditions in the following panel. The bubble could read, “ONE. NO
ONE CAN SWITCH PARTNERS. THERE IS NO DEBATING OUR PRESCRIBED CHOICE FOR YOU.”
Or something.
Panel 2 – Bold “Two” but remove the bold from “rookies” and
“at all”
Panel 3 – Remove the bold from “fucked”
Page Twenty-four
I can't decide if the bold works here, if it should be moved
to "rat fink," or if it should be removed the bold entirely.
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