Goran Sudžuka made it until issue eleven to rush the art. Before, when he stopped putting effort into the inks, it was noticeable and unfortunate because Walk Through Hell lost its greatest asset. It wasn’t bad; it just lost the charm. Though, obviously, it’s not clear anything could’ve brought Walk “charm.”
Anyway.
This issue Sudžuka’s done putting in the work. He’s got to illustrate a cavern full of skeletons a couple times, then a room of snakes; he’s not putting the time into the figures or the faces. There’s a prologue flashing back to Agent Shaw’s dysfunctional childhood (which has zilch to do with the issue), and Sudžuka does an excellent job with it. Then the rest of the issue, with Shaw yelling at her iPhone in response to off-screen, now damned for all time McGregor’s text messages, is not excellent. Given writer Garth Ennis’s bewildering understanding of smartphone coverage in Hell, which includes text-to-speech and ghostly voice chat, it seems impossible anyone could’ve done well.
And so, it’s a nothing issue, even more than the usual Walk nothing issues. Writer Garth Ennis is burning through twenty pages to make the twelve-issue limited series count. Nothing else. Nothing significant this issue happens outside some unnecessary explanation, and Ennis closing a red herring from a couple issues ago. Nothing’s necessary for the comic. It’s just more pages.
No wonder Sudžuka didn’t want to put in the effort.
There’s only one more issue of Walk Through Hell. The series is definitely worse than I thought it would be—so much for it being a World War I war comic, as I’d assumed for some reason, but I don’t know if it’s ending worse than its lowest point. I mean, it probably will. I’m predicting Ennis has got a couple twists before he’s done.
I wonder how bad they’ll be.
Leave a Reply