Re: RARA-AVIS: Re:Jonny Double

Mark Sullivan (ANONYMEINC@webtv.net)
Tue, 1 Sep 1998 13:51:49 -0400 (EDT) Kevin,
Thanks for the info on Jonny Double. If it is at all like the Sinner
series, I will have to check it out. I agree with you that Stray
Bullets is probably the best thing out there right now, both for its
storytelling and its art. I just picked up issue #15, but have not yet
had a chance to read it (also got the 1st issue of the new Spirit, Shut
Up and Die, the latest Gangland and the latest Eightball, which isn't
hardboiled, but the same artist used to do Lloyd Lewellyn about a
hipster private eye with a beatnik sidekick, funny out-there stuff). I
like Jinx quite a bit, too, about a female bounty hunter and her new
relationship with Goldfish a reformed (?) con man.

As for Sin City, though, I like that a lot too. Ironically, I like it
for almost exactly the same reasons I got tired of Spillane and Vachss'
Burke series (though, as always when saying that, I must exempt Shella
and Bad Blood, highly recommend both; wish he did more non-Burke). Every
one of your criticisms is true, it is very overblown, both in execution
and reputation, the storytelling is incredibly simplistic. And that's
what I love about it. It is a comic book in the grand, glorious,
hyberbolic sense, just what most people mean when they use the term in a
derogatory manner. Plus I'm a sucker for white ink on black ever since
I saw Will Eisner's Spirit. Sure, Sin City is no Spirit or Sinner, but
I enjoy it as a highly stylized quick, trashy read.

I'd give it up in an instant if I had to choose betweeen it and Stray
Bullets, but I'm glad I don't.

Mark

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