Comic Review: All Crime Comics #1

I wasn’t sure what to pick up this week.  Nothing really stood out on the comic shelf as the kind of comic I would not only want to review, but dammit, I wanted something that I might enjoy.  Then my eyes fell on All Crime Comics.  It had a pulpy feel to the cover and boasts $3.95 for 36 big pages…sold!

Cover:

            The cover art looked familiar, like I had seen the artist before, but whether it was the way it was colored or the fact hat the woman had her eyes closed, not giving away one of the artist’s most distinct features, I was stumped.  Then I opened it and his name was right there: Bruce Timm, the father of Batman The Animated Series.  Sweet.  Even if it wasn’t created by someone with such a pedigree in the comics world, the execution on the cover is top notch.  From the illustration itself to the faux damage to the cover, the kind you would see in the old days when comics were actually read multiple times, it screams awesome.  The soft color choices of the smoking woman, contrasted by the hard lines of the doorway and the man standing there, watching her is well executed, as well as the overall design sense.  The way your eye moves around the page proves that Timm’s time in animation has not dulled any of his comic sensibilities. 

            The best part is that Timm draws a scantily clad woman, that you don’t even notice as much as you would think you would because of the way that he lights it and the overall design aesthetic that he brings to the cover.  Sure, he wants her to be the focus, but it’s not a cheesy superhero comic, she isn’t to be leered at by masturbatory fanboys.  She exudes the femme fatale that was so prevalent in the entertainment industry that was prevalent in the time that this cover is trying to (and succeeding in) transporting us back to.

10/10 – Whatever Timm was paid to create this cover, it was not enough.  Phenomenal job.

Story:

            The first thing that throws me off is that this is written by something called the Art of Fiction.  What is that?  Is it like a writer’s room of a television show?  How am I supposed to have high expectations for something that people won’t put their name on?  It’s getting a bit sketchy already.  We dive right into the action right away as a beefy Russian guy (why are they always Russian?) beats the crap out of a group of guys.  Once we are through with that (which feels like a pre-credits sequence) we actually get to the meat of the story which is a “one last job” kind of story based in 1989, where the criminals in question are breaking into a prison to murder someone.  Okay, so far it’s not really new or inventive, but it just started, so there is still hope.  I am also a bit unclear as to why the setting is 1989, but hopefully that gets worked out as well.

            Midway through the comic, we are transported back in time to 1966, to see the individual that is the target of the hit when he first started out on his life of crime.  This is a nice little story within the story, and does a good job of giving us a general background.  We are then transported back to the present (1989) where the criminals are breaking in to the prison to carry out the hit.  There are complications, because there are always complications, but the hit does work out in the end because of the insurance policy of a sniper outside the prison. 

            The story reads okay, but it leaves me with a few questions.  We are never told why the current action is set in 1989, and no specific action in the present, or in the 1966 flashback gives any concrete reason why it should be there.  The flashback dwells on the budding rivalry between the hit target and his former friend, all over a girl (naturally).  The main question I have is, the target is accounted for in both time periods, as is the girl, but the rival isn’t.  Dodger (the main character) acts like he is the rival, or at least has the same relationship to the target as the rival does, but he is way too young to be the same person without some kind of goofy manipulation.  And if he is not the same person, what is his relationship to these people?  There are a lot of questions and a lot of loose ends, but because this is not a one shot issue, I am hopeful that it gets worked out eventually. 

7/10 – While it leaves a lot of loose ends, I am interested to see where the story goes and what connections these characters have to one another.

Art:

            First of all, the choice to have the 1989 setting and the 1966 setting illustrated by two different people in two distinctly different styles was about as smart as getting Bruce Timm to do the cover.  Using something as clichéd as different shaped panels or a sepia tone would not have been nearly as effective as this was.  It goes from Noir to Riverdale and back again, and that jarring shift helps transport you to the destination. 

            The artwork itself, by Ed Laroche and Marc Sandroni, is pretty good.  Laroche has a little trouble at times with proportions, but it is not overly distracting.  Sandroni’s art starts out clear, but then gets fuzzy, literally fuzzy like a camera out of focus toward the end of his middle portion.  I am not sure if that was intentional or not, but it doesn’t read well.  Storytelling in Sandroni’s portion is very clear while Laroche suffers from the over-use of shadows.  It’s not a bad thing if you can work within it, Jae Lee does it perfectly, but there are a few instances where Laroche loses me.  It’s not terrible and not overpowering to the overall quality of the book though.

The pages look like this because the binding is similar to book binding, which leads to a nice overall product but hurts the reproduction ability.  There are also a couple instances when the art or text bleeds over into that no-man's land of the spine.

Here is an example of the middle portion of the book.  The different style and the storytelling here are nice.

7/10 – The art is well executed for the most part, with only a few minor issues.  It does provide the overall feel of a crime-type book though.

Overall: 7/10 – If this book can continue to pump out the same kind of quality material that is on display in this first issue, I will be pleasantly surprised.  Every choice made by the creative team in terms of putting the book together was the right one.  Even though the book feels like a movie or television script test-run, it stands on its own as a quality story.