Daytripper

Collects: Daytripper #1-10 (2010)

Released: February 2011 (DC / Vertigo)

Format: 256 pages / color / $19.99 / ISBN:

What is this?: A Brazilian man faces the pivotal days of his life — and dies every time.

The culprits: Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá

I do not often read comics like Daytripper — that is, comics that aren’t superhero-based or heavily based on some sci-fi / fantasy concept. If I were a more reflective man, Daytripper’s status as the best trade paperback I read in 2012 might cause me to re-examine my reading choices. (It won’t, though.)

Still, Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá’s Vertigo book is the most engrossing comic I’ve read in years. Daytripper chronicles the life of obituary writer Brás de Olivias Dominguez as he struggles to become a novelist, like his famous father. Moon and Bá show one important event in Brás’s life per issue; at the end of each, Brás dies.

And in the next issue, it’s another day, either in Brás’s future or past, and he lives again.

Each death gives Bá and Moon a chance to show how Brás’s life would have been perceived had he died at that moment, through the medium of an obituary. Success, failure, artist, pretender — all those labels depend on flukes, accidents of time and place. Each story examines life and death with charming narration of surprising depth, and Brás’s deaths are never mined for cheap pathos or laughs. Despite the constant presence of death and the evaluation of a life, Daytripper isn’t depressing; in the end, the book is uplifting, hopeful.

Part of the reason Daytripper isn’t just a maundering journey through one man’s frequently interrupted life is the ending, a surprisingly sweet one. But a larger part of the reason is that Brás is always moving forward. Each issue features a pivotal moment for Brás, and when he hits that pivot, he’s always moving, never frozen by fear or lack of desire. Brás is easy to like because of his hope and desires; he may not be an unstoppable force or mighty hero, but he’s not a modern protagonists filled with angst and ambivalence, like one of novelist Charles Yu’s characters.

I don’t know who did the art; the book gives no specific credits to either Moon or Bá. Whoever held the pencils and pens, the art is wonderful — evocative, as capable of telling the story as the words (sometimes, more so). The characters’ expressions are detailed and subtle. The style is representative without being slavishly literal. The color palette is well chosen for each issue. Although I don’t necessarily want to read more comics in this literary vein, I need to seek out more of this art … although even this art won’t aid stories it isn’t suited for or I don’t care for (such as Casanova).

I can’t fully express how much I liked this book. The simplicity of its concept, explored through an almost lyrical pairing of art and words, make Daytripper an outstanding comic. I’m disappointed it took me two years to find Daytripper, even though I knew about the title from a review of #1 on House to Astonish. However, I’m happy I have read it.

Rating: (5 of 5)

The Unwritten, v. 1: Tommy Taylor and the Bogus Identity

Collects: The Unwritten #1-5 (2009)

Released: January 2009 (DC / Vertigo)

Format: 144 pages / color / $9.99 / ISBN: 9781401225650

What is this?: The son of the author of a Harry Potter-like fantasy series gets drawn into a conspiracy about his real parentage and the affect literature has on the real world — and vice versa.

The culprits: Writer Mike Carey and artist Peter Gross

All right — here’s what I know about The Unwritten, v. 1: Tommy Taylor and the Bogus Identity:

1. The central conceit — that of the intersection of fiction and reality, of whether literature comes from some place “real” — is an interesting one, and it hasn’t been done to death.

2. The hero, Tom Taylor, is the son of a man who wrote a series of boy wizard books that was bigger than Harry Potter.

3. There is real magic in our world.

4. There is a real literary conspiracy in our world. The conspiracy has been going on for more than a century, involving Mark Twain and Rudyard Kipling.

5. Somehow, geography in books and where books were written is important.

6. There is no #6.

I really wish Tommy Taylor wasn’t bigger than Harry Potter. I really do. It’s not supposed to be a big deal for the reader … but it makes everything harder to swallow. If the Tommy Taylor series were a knockoff of Harry Potter, one moderately successful but not as popular as Rowling’s creation, it would be easier to understand.

But I have a feeling that Tommy’s popularity is going to be a small but essential part of the plot. The conspiracy that has been shaping whose stories have been told and listened to has made Tommy Taylor popular because Wilson Taylor was cooperating with it. The popularity of the Tommy Taylor series is tied to the strength of the conspiracy.

Fantasies set in the real world can have a difficult time sustaining suspension of disbelief, and it can crumble for a myriad of reasons, each depending on the individual reader. When I look back at Unwritten, I don’t think of the positives. The effective weirdnesses built into Tom Taylor’s life drift away from my memory; I don’t think of the endless staircase in the basement of his de facto stepmother or the “reporter” who looks like a grown-up version of Tommy Taylor’s fictional female sidekick or Tom’s mysterious origins. I don’t think of the effective Harry Potter pastiches that writer Mike Carey throws in to give the reader a taste of and a background in the Tommy Taylor series, each of which is nicely drawn by artist Peter Gross. I don’t think of the conspiracy’s enforcer’s creepy powers or his running through a horror writer’s retreat with farm implements. And I don’t think of Tom himself, an aimless young man who subsists on his fame and whose only motivation is another buck on the convention circuit until allegations about his origins cause him to search for the truths.

All those are effective; all those are parts of an excellent story. No, I think of:

• A book series that 40 percent of all literate people have read;

• A character so popular he has inspired a cult;

• A guest of honor at a convention who is so fragile he has security lead away a cosplayer who won’t let go of a niggling plot point;

• Who also spouts snippets of literary geography without point or warning;

• And a fifth issue that is essentially a biography of Rudyard Kipling, told as if the conspiracy had actually existed, completely stopping the book’s momentum as dead as a hammer.

And I don’t believe it. And unlike, say the TV series Castle, I’m not so entertained that my interest can survive that lack of belief. This should work; all the elements are there. I was interested enough after reading Unwritten #1 (which can be seen at http://www.dccomics.com/media/excerpts/13677_1.pdf) that I bought the TPB.

I like the art from Gross. He has a flat, clean style that works well with characters — and a world — that is supposed to have come from a children’s story. The interludes from the Tommy Taylor books look different and right; somehow, they echo what such stories are supposed to look like in my head. The art has to incorporate text and melting things frequently, like a combination of Dali and a typewriter, and Gross’s art does it well. I think this is the first I’ve seen of Gross — although I know I’m well behind the curve on that — but I’m looking forward to seeing more.

I’m not sure it will be on Unwritten, though. I don’t know if I want to buy the next volume of Unwritten. I see the good points and a lot of potential … but it doesn’t interest me. I think, for once, the failure must lie with me. I just can’t recommend this book, but I can’t say my opinion is based on firm enough ground to dissuade others.

Rating: (3.5 of 5)

100 Bullets, v. 13: Wilt

Collects: 100 Bullets #89-100 (2008-9)

Released: July 2009 (DC / Vertigo)

Format: 304 pages / color / $19.99 / ISBN: 9781401222871

What is this?: The finale to the crime / conspiracy series 100 Bullets, in which the main characters start dropping like flies.

The culprits: Writer Brian Azzarello and artist Eduardo Risso

Here’s another end to another crime / conspiracy series: 100 Bullets, v. 13: Wilt. This ending is more recent and more anticipated than the end of the Bendis / Maleev run on Daredevil, but is it any better?

Writer Brian Azzarello and artist Eduardo Risso certainly set their sights higher. It is more difficult to come up with a successful new concept than revitalize an old one, and 100 Bullets, with the freedom and planning that Vertigo seems to specialize in, had a planned end even as the series began in 1999. And while 100 Bullets had higher goals, I can’t say the conclusion actually made it to those lofty heights.

100 Bullets tells the story of the Trust, a conspiracy that laid claim on the New World. They formed a group of gunmen called the Minutemen to keep the peace between the thirteen families that make up the Trust. But the Trust betrayed the Minutemen, who went into hiding, and their leader, Agent Graves, planned his revenge. In Wilt, that long-planned revenge comes to fruition, although not without snags — and the Trust hasn’t been idle either.

This is definitely a cataclysmic conclusion of the old school; Shakespeare, in his way, would have been proud of this revenge tale, as all the remaining important players meet and try to kill each other. Azzarello leaves none of the big players at loose ends, tossing them all together in a big firefight at the end. It’s not exactly a satisfying end for most of the players, other than to say they are violent men who died because of their pursuit of violence; but there’s little poetry in most of their ends, and it comes across as a lot of violence feeding on the ever decreasing list of characters. But it’s the way the story had to end, given the violence inherent in the setup; the only question was who would survive, if anyone did.

The biggest failure of Wilt is it’s all resolution and no solution: there are no mysteries of any consequence to wrap up, either in plot or character. Motivations are sometimes left ambiguous in the final story, but that’s part of the debate and fun of so long a series. But the Minutemen shift their loyalties in the time it takes to pull a trigger. Before the ending, the motivations seem like trails of gun smoke: insubstantial and easily blown one way or the other. That’s not fun. It just seems arbitrary, taking the importance out of how the characters reached the story’s final battlelines.

I think, of all the series I’ve read in trade paperback form, 100 Bullets suffers the most from waiting for the trade. You really need a scorecard to keep track of who’s playing, and the trade paperbacks don’t supply anything of the sort — no summaries, no recaps, no handy lists of characters. The release schedule of the monthly issues might have been able to keep readers familiar with who’s who, but when it’s been six months or a year since the last volume, it’s impossible to know exactly what’s going on without doing research. I don’t think it speaks well of 100 Bullets that I would need Wikipedia or a guidebook to understand what’s going on. Chances are, if I read the whole series at once, it would be a lot easier — but who has time to read all thirteen volumes?

Azzarello isn’t big on the old superhero comic cliché of trying to slip exposition into his dialogue, which is more natural, but it also makes it a challenge for the reader. He also isn’t afraid to introduce new characters and let the readers puzzle out whether he’s important or a returning character or both or neither. In previous volumes, I could let this slide, hoping it would come out all right in the end, but in the final volume, that’s just not going to work. In Wilt, for example, one character drifted through the book, shooting and maiming, but not only did I not know who Will Slaughter was until the final issue, I didn’t know he was the same character who had appeared before.

Risso isn’t a big help on this score. I enjoy his style, but a long storyline with a large cast of characters shows his flaws. His art fits the subject matter perfectly, full of atmosphere and violence, with gore and blood dripping off every page. The dangerous men look like they could jump off the page and beat you to death with your own arm; the femme fatales look like they could tempt a man to sin and worse. But his dangerous men tend to be similar looking large men in suits; the schemers behind everything tend to be similar looking old men with short haircuts. The femme fatales have similar faces and body styles, looking as if they might be related somehow. Still, it’s impossible to imagine Wilt or 100 Bullets without his half of the work.

I know this isn’t what I should be talking about, but Wilt is a bargain: twelve issues for $20, and most people can get it for a discount somewhere. Compare that value with the next book up for review: Marvel’s Thor Visionaries: Walter Simonson, v. 1. Same number of issues, a few fewer pages, but the price is $29.99 — ten bucks higher. Given that Wilt is more recent, it’s even more astonishing; Simonson probably doesn’t get the same type of royalties as Vertigo gives out, and the Thor Visionaries is a reissue of an older book, so Marvel probably already had the printing set-up completed. And that doesn’t even take into consideration timeliness: one contains the completed ending of a recent, long-anticipated storyline, and the other contains issues almost a quarter of a century old that anyone who wanted could have tracked down in quarter bins or back-issue boxes. Is the paper in Wilt as nice as it is in the Simonson volume? No. Do I care? Not even a little. In one book, DC sums up the difference in value between it and Marvel.

For fans of 100 Bullets, Wilt wraps up the story. That’s rewarding in and of itself: here is the finale of a story, and nothing more will follow it. I wish I could be enthusiastic and unstinting in my praise, but I can’t. Wilt isn’t as engrossing or fun of a conclusion as I would have hoped, but it does make me want to reread the previous volumes. Also, I can’t deny Azzarello and Risso have ended the story in the manner in which they had began it. And that’s something, despite the confusion and unsatisfying ends that conclusion brings.

Rating: (3 of 5)

Fables, v. 11: War and Pieces

Collects: Fables #70-5 (2008)

Released: November 2008 (DC / Vertigo)

Format: 192 pages / color / $17.99 / ISBN: 9781401219130

What is this?: The battle for the Homelands begins as the Fables in exile take the fight to the Adversary

The culprits: Writer Bill Willingham, penciler Mark Buckingham, and artist Niko Henrichon

Anticipation, like fame, is a difficult beast. It’s hard to capture and harder to hold onto, and often it turns out to be a bit of a burden.

Writer Bill Willingham, penciler Mark Buckingham, and a host of other artists have been building the story of the exile Fables for the past six years, telling stories of the community of exiled storybook characters as they first resisted the Adversary who drove them from their homelands and then put themselves into a position to return the favor. Willingham has been building to this volume — Fables, v. 11: War and Pieces — which I’ve read was originally supposed to end the series. (I can’t find a primary source, so you’ll have to take my word for that.)

But ultimately, War and Pieces disappoints, for the same reason The Good Prince disappoints. The hints and mysteries have all come to an end, and there is not enough suspense to replace them. There seems little danger, little challenge for the Fables during their war. They have their plan, which involves a flying ship filled with mundy weapons, and it is nearly unassailable. It all works too well. Willingham tries to make it appear anyone can die — and there are casualties — but one or two small reversals can’t create that atmosphere. It may seem like a spoiler to say the outcome’s never in doubt, but it’s obvious from the beginning, and there aren’t enough red herrings in the actual story to deceive. The anticipation of a tale of love and glory, a case of do or die, is blunted; I don’t think War and Pieces will live up to whatever story the reader has built up in his mind.

More enjoyable is the two-part story that kicks off the action, “Skullduggery,” in which superspy Cinderella retrieves a “package” in Tierra del Fuego. There is the action, the suspense, that the main story lacks, that the larger story of Fables has only rarely lost. Willingham and Buckingham do an excellent job with these little caper stories, and this one is no exception.

Buckingham’s art, as always, is a joy to see. It’s pretty, obviously, but Buckingham gives the story his usual attention to detail, interesting panel layouts, and page borders. Niko Henrichon supplies the art for the first issue in War and Pieces; it’s hard for me to give it a fair shake. It isn’t to my taste — a bit scratchy and imprecise for me — and the polished, smooth work from Buckingham only emphasizes the qualities in Henrichon’s work that I dislike. Fortunately, the subject matter — it’s a story about relationships — is a better fit to his style than the action pieces that follow.

This is a definite finish to the storyline that started in 2002, and it’s all wrapped up tidily, despite the narration’s insistence that there’s still a wild ride ahead. (I don’t doubt that there is; it’s just it spoils the ending, the triumph, the creators have spent so long building toward when they add a discordant note that late in the story.) This story is not a flop, like Episodes II and III of Star Wars; it isn’t even the disappointment that surrounded Episode I. It just isn’t as good as the overall, 75-issue story Willingham and Buckingham have created.

Rating: (3 of 5)

Fables, v. 10: The Good Prince

Collects: Fables #60-9 (2007-8)

Released: June 2008 (DC / Vertigo)

Format: 240 pages / color / $17.99 / ISBN: 9781401216863

Fables, as I mentioned in my previous review, tells the story of characters and creatures out of legends and fairy tales who have made their way to our world as refugees from a world-devouring Adversary. In Fables, v. 10: The Good Prince, one of the Fables tries to reclaim a conquered kingdom for the first time as the rest of the Fables prepare and wait for war.

Writer Bill Willingham’s plot is essentially divided in two: the ramping up of tensions and revelations to what looks like an inevitable war and the story of bumbling janitor Fly, who becomes King Ambrose. The war preparations are more interesting; here, long-term hints are confirmed or denied, further threads are spun, and pieces are put in place for the final conflict. This is the path the series has been journeying down for six or so years, and it dominates the first half of the book.

Fly’s story, which occupies the second half, is a dead end, in which Fly goes to meet his destiny against the Adversary’s forces. After Fly arrives at his destination, his battles are seemingly effortless; he does what he wants, and the Empire’s troops are helpless to stop him. There’s little suspense here, even in whether Fly lives or dies, because either way, his story ends here. Mainly it seems an exercise in making the Adversary’s armies a more even match for the mobilizing free Fables.

Mark Buckingham does his usual great job on art, with an amazing amount of detail. As I said in my review of Fables, v. 7: Arabian Days (and Nights), I love his gorgeous art, with its smooth line and outstanding range. I still can’t help marveling over the page border art Buckingham designs for each setting in each issue, with the art occasionally taking over the border space if needed.

Also included is a one-issue story (#64) that focuses on Snow White and Bigby’s cubs learning the secret of their seventh sibling. It’s a nice change of pace in the middle of the book that doesn’t detract from the main plot. Aaron Alexovitch’s art is perfect for this more lighthearted tale; the art’s manga influences allow Alexovitch to show the exaggerated emotions of a pack of five-year-olds and Rose and Boy Blue’s awkward mutual crush.

Despite the unsatisfying chunks to the story, Prince keeps the story moving without derailing it. And until the big payoff, that’s really all we need, even if we hope for more.

Rating: (2.5 of 5)

Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall

Collects: Original graphic novel (2006)

Released: February 2008 in TPB form (DC / Vertigo)

Format: 144 pages / color / $14.99 / ISBN: 9781401203696

One of the cleverer ideas out of Vertigo — one that falls in neither the Neil Gaiman-derived property or character-reimagined-so-drastically-even-its-own-creator-wouldn’t-recognize-it camps — is Fables. In this series, writer Bill Willingham, usually assisted by artist Mark Buckingham, tells the story of characters and creatures out of legends and fairy tales who have made their way to our world as refugees from a world-devouring Adversary. Here, they stopped fleeing, and the story has been slowly building, through several volumes, toward a decisive conflict.

But Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall is a flashback — or a prequel, depending on your point of view — set before Willingham’s story begins. In Snowfall, Snow White, one of the leading Fables, travels to the land of the Arabian Fables to enlist their aid against the Adversary. Unfortunately, Snow is forced into the role of Scheherazade and tells the stories of the refugee Fables to spare her own life and instruct the king in morality and of the refugee’s plight.

There are quite a few excellent stories that fill in missing pieces in some of the most prominent characters’ histories. The story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves is recast as a revenge tale. Old King Cole, a merry old soul in prosperity, is shown as a good king in adversity. Frau Totenkinder, the grandmotherly villain of Hansel and Gretel, truly and frighteningly lives up to her name. Ambrose, the lowly janitor of the Fables’ apartment building, becomes a tragic figure after spending so long as bumbling comic relief; this story should be read before Fables, v. 10: The Good Prince, or it loses most of its emotional impact.

For long-time readers, this is a reward, a book that simply answers questions without the plot getting in the way. Readers who are unfamiliar with the story might get something from the stories, but the background of the series is necessary for the stories to have their intended impact.

These are excellent stories; I can’t praise them enough. Willingham takes some of the oldest characters around and recasts them again, after already recasting them at the beginning of the series. Most of the stories have a war-refugee theme that link them together, which fits the frame of Snow telling the Arabian king these tales. The imagination is impressive, and even if I don’t care for one or two of them, overall Snowfall delivers.

On the other hand, the art didn’t match the quality of the writing. First, there are as many different pencillers as there are stories, giving the book a hodgepodge, thrown-together look. Secondly, I don’t particularly care for the art styles of two of the most prominent stories — John Bolton’s painted art inexplicably makes Snow White look Japanese and everything else look like an optical illusion, and Tara McPherson makes everyone look like a 2-D cutout. Other than Charles Vess’s illustration of the framing text and James Jean’s work on Ambrose’s story, I don’t really like the rest. I realize I am making a stylistic judgment into a decision on the work’s quality, and strictly speaking, that isn’t fair. Many people will probably enjoy Bolton and McPherson, but their work stylistically distracted my attention from the story without adding anything to it that a more commonplace style would have.

And thirdly, speaking of distractions and Vertigo, when related to the art: there’s a fair amount of gratuitous nudity. Other than Vess’s and McPherson’s work, every story with a prominent female character displays a woman’s breasts, if not more. I may be a prude, but I don’t think every story requires female nudity without any male nudity. I know this is mature-readers material, but come on: there are limits. Also, after seeing Bolton’s work, I’ll never see the Disney princesses in the same way again.

Fables readers who skip this volume won’t miss any plot points, but they’ll miss some very entertaining work. They’ll also miss a great deal of eye-straining art, but you have to take the good with the bad sometimes.

Rating: (3 of 5)

Fables, v. 7: Arabian Days (and Nights)

Collects: Fables #42-7 (2005-6)

Released: June 2006 (DC)

Format: 144 pages / color / $14.99 / ISBN: 1401210007

Having revealed the identity of the mastermind villain in the sixth volume of Fables, writer Bill Willingham and artist Mark Buckingham take a step to the side in Fables, v. 7: Arabian Nights (and Days). Instead of dealing with the Adversary, the Fables have their first contact with the fables of another culture.

The Arabian Fables show up in the form of Sinbad and his retinue, and as one might expect, certain characteristics of the American / Iraqi relationship appear. And that’s where Arabian Nights falls down.

Sinbad’s retinue contains two sore spots for the Fables: slaves, for the obvious reasons, and a djinn, because it is an incredibly destructive weapon (and of course, the back cover of the TPB compares the djinn to a WMD). Both of these problems are dealt with ridiculously easily, and the resulting conflict is swept under the flying carpet much too easily. Imprisonment, torture, and nation building are shuffled off the stage as quickly as they occur. Perhaps it will be dealt with in future issues; Willingham has left the probability it will.

It doesn’t matter whether Willingham’s story is critical of the failures or supportive of the successes that have occurred in Iraq. It’s just that the story calls up these echoes of the present conflict, then dismisses them without saying anything.

The volume ends with a long story of Rodney and June, wooden soldiers who wish to become human to express their love. The wooden-creatures-wanting-to-be-human story doesn’t resonate with me, and although it is well done, there is no deep message or twist ending to redeem the story for me.

That aside, the established characters do continue to grow and change. Mayor Prince Charming shows his true colors and gets a pair of dressings down for it; Old King Cole gets to show why he was mayor for so long; Red Riding Hood begins to develop a personality; and Beauty and the Best start to slip out from under their predecessors’ shadows. Snow’s cubs continue to grow, and Frau Totenkinder shows why you don’t mess with Frau Totenkinder.

Something I take for granted is Buckingham’s art. Not only is the art pretty to look at, with a smooth line that can exaggerate when need be, but there are also small touches that make it enjoyable: small cartoons at the top of each page and background art along the margins. The art has life; it is vivid. The story of Rodney and June, on the other hand, is by Jim Fern, and although it’s competent, it just seems bland and stiff (appropriate, that latter characteristic) compared to Buckingham’s work.

This is probably my least favorite volume of Fables. If you’re reading the series already, though, you’re going to read Arabian Nights anyway. And if you’re not, you definitely are not going to start here.

Rating: (2.5 of 5)

100 Bullets v. 9: Strychnine Lives

Collects: 100 Bullets #59-67 (2005-6)

Released: April 2006 (DC / Vertigo)

Format: 224 pages / color / $14.99 / ISBN: 1401209289

100 Bullets is a series by Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso that is filled with sex and violence and desperation and violence and subterfuge and very, very violent violence.

The series was originally about a gun and 100 bullets handed out by the mysterious Agent Graves, who gave a wronged party evidence of who was responsible for their heartache or ruination and told that they wouldn’t be punished for whatever they did with the gun and bullets. Since then, the story has moved on to Graves, the shadowy, world-controlling Trust he used to work for, and the cadre of elite killers he used command, the Minutemen.

But it’s the sex and violence that dominate. Is it gratuitous? Well, it depends. When the story is about the Trust, Graves, and the Minutemen, the answer is no. With control of the world at stake, no one’s going to scruple about a few dozen bodies scattered around the world. But when it comes to the background stories of misery, of people whose lives were destroyed in their quests for sex, money, or drugs, the mayhem seems much less necessary.

In Strychnine Lives, for instance, Spain, a felon, and his dog and lawyer get mixed up with bellboy named Tito. By the time their story is over, not only are they all dead (except for the lawyer, who is arrested for doing something vile while high on PCP), but a drug gang is also wiped out. The events have only a tangential relationship with the other stories in Strychnine Lives. The stories happening at the same time have great meaning for the overall plot but are talky; it’s as if Azzarello thinks the readers will get bored unless there’s constant blood and gunfire.

The real meat of Strychnine Lives is the story of three factions: the Trust, focused on the House of Medici, which is headed by Augustus and his son Benito; the resurrected Minutemen, who are under the control of Graves; and a third faction, led by violent renegade Minuteman Lono. Graves and Lono both parley with Augustus; each are involved with double and triple crosses. It’s impossible to tell what Graves’s plan is or if Lono is as blood simple as he appears.

It’s these stories that are the most fascinating part of 100 Bullets, changing the relationships between factions and characters while revealing a past that makes the reader reexamine what he thought he knew. Key players get removed from the board, and new ones step up from obscurity.

Azzarello creates a fascinating world with a secret history, bloodsoaked and dangerous, even if he goes overboard with offing his background characters. On the other hand, sometimes those stories work, if they’re integrated into the plot: the first story in Strychnine Lives has a Minuteman being drawn into the plot, and he walks out of the love triangle he had been the middle of, with tragic results for the other two vertices. On the other hand, a character he created in the first arc of 100 Bullets, Dizzy, entrances and draws men to her to an almost ridiculous degree. In the final story, three key players in the 100 Bullets follow her to Mexico, not deterred by bullets or the presence of the other two. Her allure doesn’t ring true — she’s no seductress, she’s a former gangbanger who barely notices the men who get swept up behind her — but I hope Azzarello can justify his fascination with the character.

Risso’s art in 100 Bullets has to be mentioned. An excellent noir artist, all his women are femme fatales and all his men are dirty, to some extent or another, even when they’re decked out in custom-made suits. His world is filled with stark, all-encompassing shadows, silhouettes, and red, red blood. There is little shading or subtlety about it. Without that art, the world of 100 Bullets would be a vastly different — and probably lesser — place.

Strychnine Lives is not an introduction to 100 Bullets; it is an engrossing part of the story already begun. When it is good, it’s very good, but its excesses drag it down a little.

Rating: (4 of 5)