If you’re going to do a story about old white people, get a guy who can draw old white people. Francesco Francavilla draws Nitz like he’s in his mid-thirties and his fifty-something ex-wife like she’s twenty. I thought she was his daughter.
Aaron really flops this issue. Once again, it’s hard to care, because his occasional flopping is to be expected. But the way he flops this time… he turns Scalped into an anticlimactic issue of Creepy or something. It’s a bad seventies horror comic in the Poe vein.
If Aaron had a really story to tell, instead of feeling the need for a Nitz issue–and first person, corrupt, evil FBI agent really isn’t a good way to spend an issue–Francavilla’s art probably would work. Francavilla can draw but he’s not matching the script; that disconnect’s a problem.
I miss Scalped misfires being a surprise.
CREDITS
The Ballad of Baylis Earl Nitz – High Lonesome, Part Three of Five; writer, Jason Aaron; artist, Francesco Francavilla; colorist, Giulia Brusco; letterer, Steve Wands; editors, Mark Doyle and Will Dennis; publisher, Vertigo.
The Stop Button 
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