Book Review: 100 Bullets

About two weeks ago my friend Ron loaned me the first Deluxe edition of the Vertigo comic book series 100 Bullets, written by Brian Azzarello and Illustrated by Eduardo Risso.  Have collected a large number of Vertigo titles over the years, I was familiar with the name of the book, but had never gotten around to reading it.

First of all - thank you Ron.

Holy cats is this an incredibly cool book!  It ran from 1999 to 2009 (so all you cool folk who have already read the series are one up on me), and featured a pretty interesting premise.

If you were offered a way to take your vengeance on the person who hurt you most in your life, perhaps the murderer of someone you loved, or maybe the thief who ruined your life or reputation, and were guaranteed that if you took advantage of the deal that nothing would come back to you, there would be no investigations, no arrests, or anything else heading back your way after you got your vengeance, would you do it?

The series begins as a series of stand-alone stories, a wronged person is approached by the mysterious "Agent Graves" and is given the offer, then they decide whether or not to act on it.  The stories are urban, violent (sometimes brutal), and filled with some simply great artwork.

Once you've got a few more issues in however, things start to take shape, connections begin to be made and it seems that perhaps Agent Graves may have some sort of agenda.

In some ways the book reminds me of Frank Miller's Sin City, or Greg Rucka's Stumptown, but it is definitely going in it's own direction by the point I'm at (issue 19 of 100).

Right now this is all I know, as I only borrowed volume one, but you can bet that I'll be reading the second volume as soon as I can get my hands on it.  I may be coming late to the 100 Bullets party, but believe me, I'm not leaving till I'm finished.

Book Review: Whiteout

One of my favourite things about comic books is how versatile they are; how they can be super hero comics, horror comics, romance comics or even textbooks about comics. Although my favourites tend to be fantasy and horror comics, I am a huge fan of a well done story. Today we'll look at one of my favourite graphic novels of the last two decades, Whiteout.

First off, when I say graphic novel, that's what I mean - it is not a collection of issues of an ongoing title (I have a lot of those I love as well, so I wanted to make this distinction at the start), so it has the benefit of having a clear beginning, middle and end.

My first impression of the story is how visually impressive it is; it takes place at McMurdo Station in Antarctica, is a murder mystery with a time limit (the murderer will likely be off continent in 3 days), and has an incredible main character in U.S. Marshal Carrie Stetko.

Carrie is definitely one of my favourite characters in comic books - I just find that she has a very distinctive voice as well as a lot of personal depth. Plus she is very good at her job.

Part of what I like best about the story is the fact that there is a lot of obvious work being put into it by both the writer and the artist, I've read a lot of Greg Rucka before (His run on Gotham Central may have been my favourite Batman title in a really long time), and Steve Lieber's artwork is really, really good; considering his subject is a location with a lot of white and very little shadow, I was simply blown away by the way he conveyed the vastness and loneliness of Antarctica.

The comic does have a sequel, Whiteout: Melt, which I also strongly recommend, and was adapted into a movie in 2009 - I haven't seen it yet, but apparently it went in it's own direction. This comic is really great, and if you haven't tried the works of Greg Rucka before, it is an excellent place to start.