Category: Stray Bullets
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Well, it’s far from the worst issue of Killers. It’s more with Virginia and her mostly lame boyfriend Eli; Lapham does very little to show why Eli’s any good as a boyfriend other than he’s usually sweet to Virginia. This issue has him not being sweet for the first time and it’s an awkward scene.…
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I remember when the Amy Racecar issues of Stray Bullets were wildly imaginative, wonderfully constructed black comedy. This issue, the first Killers issue to bring Amy back… is none of those things. Instead, it’s Lapham doing the “Amy Racecar as painfully obvious analog to Virginia’s life” approach. It’s depressing–not because of the content, but because…
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It's all connected! It's all connected! And why shouldn't Virginia Applejack fall for the kid from the first issue of Killers once he's grown up? It makes everything so neat and tidy, even if Lapham does skip over the actual romance because it'd be too hard to establish it. And even if Lapham does turn…
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This issue is about eight years late. Maybe eight years and a month. Is it the comic Lapham always intended to tell? Who knows. Who cares. It ends with Virginia okay and heading out into the world because she can’t lead a regular life. I don’t care if I spoiled it. I won’t spoil how…
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This issue is the story of Kevin’s father. Kevin is the bad guy who has kidnapped Virginia with badder guy Huss. Kevin’s dad is deaf and he’s a drunk because a low level mobster took off one of his fingers and he can’t hear his kid trying to gang rape a teenage girl. Lapham’s aiming…
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Silly me, how did I forget Lapham always follows up hard cliffhangers with Amy Racecar stories. Sadly, not even Amy Racecar is safe from Lapham’s laziness. It isn’t a story about Amy–her sidekick, William, returns, because apparently Virginia and Amy both always need sidekicks now. She doesn’t narrate, which is good, because it’s a terrible…
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Seriously? Seriously? Okay, so the bad guy who’s secretly gay and can’t accept it so he rapes other guys is named Huss. He’s the villain. I wonder why Lapham wanted to do this story arc. Bullets always had some kind of point, the way it revolved around a certain group of criminals. And then Virginia’s…
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Okay, so the high school arc is apparently all about Virginia going up against that kid who went insane because he had a gay encounter. Actually, it’s rather homophobic. Not just that event and the outcome, but the series overall. This issue has the guy raping another kid (another guy). Lapham’s nothing if he isn’t…
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Some of Lapham’s problem is the lack of restraint. He’s let Bullets go all over the place, he’s let his art go to pot and he’s gone too far. Maybe he hyper-extended his narrative muscles too many times and they’re just damaged. This issue has Virginia bonding with her awful mother’s new boyfriend, who’s not…
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Lapham is really enjoying his high school arc. It’s not as violent anymore because of Virginia getting the cops involved with the brawl. Or so Leon, who’s around to explain everything to Virginia because she’s become a caricature, says. Leon and Virginia sit around and comment on the events in the issue, a jock-related love…
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And here we have the issue where a couple drunk male friends fool around and it doesn’t just ruin their friendship, one of them goes insane and kills the other one. Guess Lapham liked American Beauty too. The trope wasn’t original in that movie either. There’s no context for the story. The guys are a…
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Here’s another example of Lapham slacking off. And it’s on a Virginia issue too, which is upsetting because he usually treats her better. It’s in high school, with Virginia setting off the jocks against the greasers. Because Grease, right? I don’t know what else to say about it, actually. I mean, aside from the fighting,…
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Lapham hasn’t just run out of ideas, he’s now doing reruns. This issue of Stray Bullets reminds of a few others, but in bits and pieces. So less a rerun, I guess, and more a remix. Some classmates of Virginia–who also remember her before she ran away (in a school district with so much assault…
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Lapham does some really tight art this issue. I don’t think his figures have ever been so precise. It’s a shame the story’s not there. This issue has Virginia returning home and, once home, she runs into some kid she had a conversation with during her first issue. Is it too much synergy? Yes, it…
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Here’s the thing I love about Stray Bullets–and it’s been kind of hard to love the comic lately, due to Lapham’s scurry into exploitation (intentionally or not)–even when he’s being cheap, Lapham has created a number of such excellent characters the cheapness can’t hurt the comic. For instance, this issue is a prequel to the…
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Here’s the thing I love about Stray Bullets–and it’s been kind of hard to love the comic lately, due to Lapham’s scurry into exploitation (intentionally or not)–even when he’s being cheap, Lapham has created a number of such excellent characters the cheapness can’t hurt the comic. For instance, this issue is a prequel to the…
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Ugh. Really, there’s no other word for it. Ugh. Lapham’s colliding of all his story lines and characters continues with Roger the detective–the one who had such a cool dating issue–hunting down Monster to find Virginia. Only Lapham has always used Monster as a force of nature, so having him go up against very real…
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Lapham almost brings it back, he really almost does. The comic’s been missing active intelligence from Beth–and Virginia–for quite a while (seriously, Virginia’s been on her own how long and she couldn’t sniff out a pedophile, especially one who looks like Sideshow Bob) but the end of this issue has Virginia come back. It’s fantastic.…
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How does Lapham resolve a story he didn’t have any reason to do? Poorly. He fractures Beth’s search for Virginia, cutting in scenes in their past, scenes of Beth’s investigation, lots of little cameos from other cast members. And then he turns it into an action movie. The entire issue has a frantic pace, so…
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How does Lapham resolve a story he didn’t have any reason to do? Poorly. He fractures Beth’s search for Virginia, cutting in scenes in their past, scenes of Beth’s investigation, lots of little cameos from other cast members. And then he turns it into an action movie. The entire issue has a frantic pace, so…
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And now Lapham just decides to mess with the reader. The story has Amy Racecar–you know, Virginia’s alter ego–kidnapped by a bad guy, along with her male friend. She escapes, leaving the male friend behind. Is Lapham finally going to break from the Amy Racecar stuff into Virginia’s real life, where she’s escaped from the…
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It’s another outstanding issue. This one goes a little cute, with Virginia now a babysitter to a mob guy’s bratty kids and searching the house for his missing fortune. Not missing fortune, the money his wife has stashed he now needs. He’s out with the wife. And there’s a mistress in the mix and one…
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After threatening it since issue five or so, Lapham finally has a pedophile attack Virginia. He appears to be an equal opportunity pedophile because he goes after Virginia’s friend, Bobby, too. Lapham sets up the issue differently than usual–by usual I mean the usual for when he’s threatening Virginia with rape and possibly murder–and spends…
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Sometimes–and this issue is definitely one of those times and in its entirety too–Stray Bullets feels like Lapham hasn’t realized he isn’t doing a Love and Rockets with crime and violence. This issue has Monster in L.A., after Beth and looking for the money and cocaine. Beth has a couple ex-boyfriends there and the girl…
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Lapham is still uneven. He’s trying too hard. This issue has the reveal Spanish Scott is Rose’s brother, which no doubt Lapham also had set up–it makes things make sense (her and Joey being around)–and it’s got a bunch of stuff with Joey getting traumatized. Joey grows up to be the guy who goes berserk…
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Lapham’s floundering. He finally brings Beth back, but now she’s in LA and Virginia is nowhere to be seen. She’s getting drunk at a bar and some married guy tries to pick up on her. Of course, she’s not the protagonist of the issue, it’s the married guy. His wife’s out of town and he’s…
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Maybe, instead of actually putting the money into publishing this issue, Lapham should have sat down and thought about a different one. A non-imaginary one. Because an imaginary story breaks the series. It means Lapham doesn’t have to play fair–and he doesn’t here. (I’m not talking about Amy Racecar, which has a context). This issue…
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Odd theme Lapham’s developing now–cruel women. This issue has a coed having an affair with her professor and she calls the wife during their lovemaking. It partially redeems the unfaithful husband, who seems weak instead of cruel himself. How else would he have fallen in with such a girl. Then Monster shows up for an…
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This issue might be Lapham’s most difficult to pull off, because he’s not just charting the decline of a previously sympathetic protagonist, he’s charting the decline of new, female character. He’s got to do it very, very carefully. The story is about a young woman who a couple lousy boyfriends who starts seducing married men…
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It’s an odd issue. Lapham does another Amy Racecar story to emphasize how Virginia is uncomfortable around sex, which makes sense since he’s constantly threatening to have someone rape her. Still, it’s not bad. Lapham does a lengthy Chandler-inspired detective story, convoluting it more and more each panel. By the end it’s impossible to keep…
The Stop Button 