The Stop Button

You know a comic is good when the writer can introduce an unbelievable amount of characters names in the first three pages and you still love it.

Maybe it’s just because Nitz did a poker issue. It’d be hard to mess up a good poker issue. The lead–I think his name’s John but it doesn’t really matter–ends up in a dead mobster and eventually heads to Graceland (yep) to play in a high stakes poker match.

Nitz goes through some of the games play by play. Smallwood doesn’t exactly have anything to do, but the scenes still come off beautifully. It was during the lengthy poker games I realized how great an issue they produced here. It’s the best Dream Thief, even if it has almost nothing to do with the overarching storyline.

The concept lends itself to episodic installments; it’s upsetting the series isn’t an ongoing one.

CREDITS

Writer, Jai Nitz; artist, colorist and letterer, Greg Smallwood; editors, Everett Patterson and Patrick Thorpe; publisher, Dark Horse Comics.