With a very strange sense of humor, you could call the first issue of Stray Bullets a comedy of errors. Two guys working for a crime boss (it’s never too clear, which is nice) have a simple task. They have to dispose of a body. Unfortunately, they have a flat.
Then it turns out one of the guys isn’t all there, mentally. David Lapham takes the story from bad to worse, dragging the reader not just into the world view of the mentally disabled guy, but into the distorted world view of his partner. And once Lapham has the reader in that mindset, he doesn’t let up until the end. He controls the reader through a lengthy, packed story–lots of panels on lots of pages.
The ending’s a bit of a letdown as Lapham lets everyone breath. It’s like he pauses to admire his craftsmanship a little much.
But still….
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CREDITS
The Look of Love; writer, artist, and letterer, David Lapham; editor, Deborah Purcell; publisher, El Capitán Books.
So how does Lapham end the first Juice Squeezers series? Well, but with too much of an eye on the future. He opens up two new story lines in this issue–one out of the blue–and confirms another one will continue.
With this first issue of Stray Bullets: The Killers, David Lapham reminds everyone why they should feel bad about themselves for not missing Stray Bullets more. It's a new story, but it hits all the best beats the series used to hit and nothing else has hit since.
Lapham sets up a perfectly good–by perfectly good, I mean predictable–cliffhanger and doesn’t use it. He doesn’t even use it when he’s building up to the cliffhanger. Instead, he goes with a logical choice. It’s not the most dramatic he could, it’s just the right one to do.
Oh, look, Lapham includes a cast list with pictures for Juice Squeezers. What an idea, actually giving your readers a reference when you have a lot of characters.
Cute David Lapham. Who knew.
Gabrych writes and writes and writes and writes. His Batman narration goes on forever, hitting the same beats again and again. Batman’s alone–everyone left him, the cops hate him, it’s just like when he started out, only he’s older. On and on it goes. Gabrych got the job of summarizing all the “War Games” fallout. It’s a thankless task.
Did IDW run out of people to hire for Rocketeer Adventures? The Kyle Baker story, done a little like a serial episode, is great, but it’s Kyle Baker. He doesn’t just get how to do comic action, he can actually write Betty. And his Shadow cameo is rather fun too.
