Hard drinking Satya is getting closer to figuring out who killed her former boss, but she’s got to survive an invisible murderer first. Bylines in Blood #2 is written by Erica Schultz and Van Jensen, drawn by Aneke, lettered by Cardinal Rae and published by AfterShock.
How hard is it to find a good hitman in small-town Pennsylvania? Pretty hard, apparently. Fourth Man #2 is written by Jeff McComsey, drawn by Mike Deodato Jr., colored by Lee Loughridge, lettered by Steve Wands and published by AWA.
Easton Newburn is a bad mother–shut your mouth; it’s a great comic. Newburn #1 is written by Chip Zdarsky, drawn by Jacob Phillips and published by Image.
Will Nevin: Ian, what’s the last leftover food you ate?
Ian Gregory: I recently had some leftover Devil Dawgs, a local Chicago chain. Except I got a burger and the only burgers they have are half a pound and I wasn’t just able to finish that in one sitting so I had like a third of this gigantic burger left and I ate like two hours later anyway. Love me a piece of meat.
Will: Gotdamn, that’s a big burger. For me, it was two slices of New York-style pepperoni pizza that had been sitting on a counter for about 36 hours. I tell you, my man, I had not had something so sinfully debauched in ages; the grease was congealed just so, the rubbery cheese still nourishing at room temperature.
Leftovers can be an adventure (Constipation? Diarrhea? Stay tuned, friends!), yet we chance them anyway — they’re quick and convenient. Sometimes even delicious. And they come on your time whenever they’re summoned from the kitchen counter or the back of the fridge.
Ian, we’re here to talk up the leftovers of the comics world, the indie books still sitting around after our colleagues have gotten their fill. We won’t promise to be timely, and there sure won’t be any super mega titles left for us to cover, so you won’t see any Bat books or X-titles in this space. (We’re not sure we’d want to enter into the intraoffice death fights to get the latter anyway. But godspeed, ye hearty souls!)
Enough of that shit. You ready to get started?
Ian: I definitely am. “Leftovers” may not seem like a nice way to describe these comics, but I’ve been looking for a way to read more indie comics, and deeper into the new releases than the marquee new Image books. Let’s see what’s on offer!
Will: *burp*
Bylines in Blood #2: Better-ish
Will: So we covered #1 here, and I think a lot of the problems still remain. But the art was strong in this issue; the fight scene against the invisible hitman and the sequential showcases in the nine-panel gunplay scene and when Satya is dumped on the curb are all highlights. The colors are sharp throughout. But it’s not perfect. I know I’ve never seen any Bible page that looked like that.
Ian: The opening fight of this issue is definitely the strongest this series has been. The “blurred out” effect on the invisible man is unsettling and distinctive but also intriguing, as the fuzziness fades over the course of the fight. The excellent nine-panel “gun swivel” is a nice little reference to Bill Sienkiewicz’s work on Moon Knight (Vol. 1, issue #9, to be exact). It’s a scene where the bold colors on this issue work well, the sharp yellow of Satya’s coat highlighting her movement (I also love the yellow outfit she wears in the party scene). But, despite all our pleas that the series avoid predictable, pat politics, pork prevails.
Will: Ian, the alliteration there was some hot shit. But yeah, the story is still as subtle as someone wearing a fishbowl as a helmet. Mayor Wilkes makes his first appearance, and he gets fingered super fuckin’ hard as the guy responsible for murdering Satya’s hero/former boss. It’s so obvious he couldn’t have done it, right? Got any suspects?
Ian: The scene at the riot is obviously meant to evoke the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020 (and “evoke” feels like too gentle a word). Mr. Evil McMayorson even shows up to laugh at Satya as his dirty cops beat her up. I mean, come on — at least let him be smart enough to hold on to the pretension of not being evil. What kind of corrupt politician stands there and watches as his underlings commit crimes — especially in a world rife with recording devices. It’s just silly. It’s also not helped by the fact that the only other real suspect, Jenn, is also insanely evil-sounding. No matter which of the two it ends up being, I cannot be surprised or satisfied.
Will: I think the thing that continues to irk me most about this book is that the dialogue — especially whenever “Lady Dick” pops up — seems so stilted. Still all sorts of awkward and weird and an unforced error. But it does feel like it’s getting better.
Ian: “Lady Dick” continues to be unfortunate, but you’re right about the dialogue. The characters insist on monologuing at each other — when Mayor Wilkes gives his whole perspective on life (“reality is, there is no truth”), I practically rolled my eyes. There aren’t any humans in this story, just robots with overly strong perspectives on the value of an independent press.
Will: Last thing. I reread #1 in my extensive preparation for this piece, and I noticed this poster for The Name of the Rose in Satya’s office. Mean anything to you?
Ian: Hard to think of a specific reason for the callout, in terms of the plot. Maybe Schultz and Jensen are just big Umberto Eco fans?
Fourth Man #2: Half Over Already?
Will: So this is a cinematic murder mystery from Artists, Writers and Artisans (which I’m contractually obligated to note is not a nonsense name for a publisher created exclusively in an attempt to game alphabetical listings), and let’s start again with the art. It’s great to see Harvey Keitel, Paul Winfield, Ed Harris, James Caan, Paul Giamatti and Bill Paxton together in one adventure, isn’t it? But seriously — these aren’t homages or subtle nods; they are direct, unmistakable likenesses of actors, and I’m not sure it adds anything to the book aside from a distraction and maybe some fun fan casting if you’re feeling more charitable. If I’m AWA’s counsel, the whole idea makes me nervous as hell.
Ian: Look, I’ve never been good at recognizing actors. If you say these characters are using the likenesses of actual people, I’ll take your word for it, but I’ve really got no radar for that sort of thing. I did feel like Deodato’s art was almost a little rotoscoped — the harsh lighting and film grain effect made it look like real people painted over. It’s not a bad look for the series, but I suspect a lot of people will either take it or leave it.
Will: For the sake of the readers and for me to not feel crazy, here are a couple pages featuring totally not Paul Winfield, definitely not Harvey Keitel and most assuredly not Bill Paxton:
But moving on, the general idea of the series, as I gather it, is that we’ve got some car salesmen beefing in a small town in 1991, and they beef so bad that one takes out a contract on the other — only for the hitman to subcontract the job before it goes south for everyone. Did I get that right? Generally, this series seems rushed — I don’t feel like this is the halfway point in the least — and it could use a bit more exposition and characterization. Still, I don’t dislike it. Is that a fair take?
Ian: You’ve got it. Romano hires Wells, who scopes out D’Agostino and roughs up Wells. Then, panicking, Wells hires Wyatt to do the deed. Except, Wyatt gets made just like Wells, roughed up, and calls in a friend of his (whom I suspect we may see next week). I like the premise — two detectives and a coroner, standing over a series of bodies in the morgue trying to piece together their relationship. Of course, we see things the detectives don’t, so by the time the fourth issue rolls around (and all three bodies have been examined), it’s possible that we’ll have perfect information, and the detectives have none. At that point, it becomes Columbo: all about watching the detectives put together the pieces we already have. I like the structure, and I like the low stakes (doing a lot here to avoid referencing Fargo). I’ll definitely keep an eye on this one to see how it all shakes out, and that’s probably the most important thing a mystery can do: keep you interested.
Newburn #1: Holy Shit, What a Book
Will: This is our fuzziest book from all the way back in December, but like the unopened guacamole in the back of your fridge that hasn’t quite hit its expiration date, you really should give this one a try. Easton Newburn is a former cop-turned-private dick on the other side of the law, working to figure out who did what and why for the various mob families in New York — as he puts it, a “U.N. inspector wandering through a warzone.” How fucking cool is that? I don’t have a single goddamned smart thing to say about this book other than it’s good, pulling off noir both without being cliche and adding something to the usual formula.
Ian: Yeah, this was an awesome issue. Newburn is every old-school noir detective rolled into one, but sometimes the oldest tools are best: He wanders into every scene like he owns the place, and his magnetic presence carries the entire book. Even better, this first issue is a self-contained mystery, smart but easy to digest. It introduces Newburn and sets up another character to join the cast in an extremely satisfying way.
Will: “Satisfying” is the best way to put it — introducing the character while presenting and solving a mystery in a tight 20-something pages is nifty as shit. And the final reveal? Columbo as hell. Again, I have nothing smart to say here.
Ian: It’s a perfectly contained issue — a single-course meal just salty enough to leave you wanting to look at the dessert menu. Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised by what Zdarsky can pull off, but I wasn’t expecting such a tight story. Philips does a lot of great work here, too; I love the watercolor-style art, the close-ups on faces (like we’re watching a TV drama), and the graphic design on the title page and inserts. What an excellent package.
Does This Smell OK?
- This is a petty complaint, but “neighbour” and “favourite” popping up in a book set in New York are not the best look. Speak American, damnit.
- The newspaper in Fourth Man #2 was nice in that it was composed of real articles, but the design was all off — print newspaper pages (when those dinosaurs still roamed the land) had a clear visual hierarchy to them. When you cut and paste a bunch of random articles, you lost that — not to mention the added visual incongruity of different fonts and styles, such as a banner New York Times headline running at the bottom of the page.
- Despite this week’s mystery theme, we have: one series where the cops are antagonists, one where they’re neutral and one where they’re the protagonists. That’s a nice diversity of mystery, in my opinion.
- Next week, we’re serving up fresh(ish?) books with Hotell, Deadbox and Radiant Black spinoff Rogue Son. And in two weeks, Newburn #2 (I hope).
Will Nevin loves bourbon and AP style and gets paid to teach one of those things. He is on Twitter far too often.
Ian Gregory is a writer and co-host of giant robots podcast Mech Ado About Nothing.
