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GHM Online Columnist - Steve Higgins |
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| LATEST NEWS .: |
.MAY 2003.
Steve's Column Debuts! |
| COLUMN PICS & LINKS .: |
by David Dapham
Hard.Cover.Edition
TPB.Edition
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Feedback is always appreciated!
E-mail me at vacuumboy9@hotmail.com
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July 25, 2003
"STRAY BULLETS VOL 4"
It's hard to know where to start with Stray Bullets. Make no mistake, this brilliant series, an ongoing crime tale written and illustrated by David Lapham, is definitely worth looking at. It has an incredible depth of character, exploring the motivations of the people at the heart of these crimes as much as it does the crimes themselves. This fact is especially true in regards to one major recurring character, a young girl named Virginia Applejack who has a gruff exterior but who readers can't help but fall for due to her quirky sense of humor and continual triumphs over adversity. Combine this great characterization with innovative storytelling techniques and labyrinthine plots, and you have all the makings of a classic.
But where to begin? To start at the beginning might seem obvious, yet it's actually a bit misleading. The second issue, a story called "Victimology" which was offered as a Free Comic Book Day offering last year, is perhaps the strongest single issue of the entire series. Yet the first "story arc" is merely a collection of vignettes that establish various characters and their roles in the bigger picture. The second and third arcs are pulled together a little more clearly as one whole story. However Lapham still seemed as if he was becoming comfortable with these characters as he went through both of those plotlines, and the stories in them almost gets too complicated at times.
The best option then is to begin at the end, with the most recent storyline to have been completed and collected. Soon to be released, the fourth Stray Bullets hardcover contains a story entitled "Dark Days" demonstrates everything this book can be when it really gets going. Originally running from issues 23 to 30 in the ongoing format, the bulk of the story (issues 24 through 30-issue 23 was an unrelated and separate story) focuses on the mysterious disappearance of two young children.
"Dark Days" does involve many characters who have appeared in the book before in previous arcs, including Virginia Applejack and her fictional alter-ego, the most wanted criminal in the galaxy, Amy Racecar. Yet the story is still surprisingly easy to follow, even without having read the issues prior to it. Lapham accomplishes this accessibility by vaguely referring to a sense of history for these characters while letting any relevant details reveal themselves as the story progresses without the need for long passages of exposition to fill in the backstory.
"Dark Days" also utilizes multiple points of view as the story unfolds, making it seem as influenced by Faulkner as by other crime writers like Chandler. Lapham explores the kidnapping from the perspective of the victims, the cops conducting the search, the caretaker of one of the victims. All the while he also jumps around from point to point, with flashbacks and flash-forwards that let us piece together all the details of the kidnapping gradually. In this situation the consequences of certain actions are occasionally revealed before we see the actions themselves. Some might think this technique would eliminate any suspense, but Lapham keeps us interested in the hows and whys behind the answers we receive to the very end.
Before you go out in search of this book, let me reiterate that I'm referring to the fourth volume of Stray Bullets in hardcover. Lapham releases a TPB for every four issues, and September is supposed to see the release of the 8th, which contains issues 29 through 32. The hardcovers, on the other hand, are larger in size and contain more issues. That makes this package a bit more expensive than your average TPB ("Dark Days" retails at $34.95). However, here the story is complete, whereas these same issues are spread out over three TPBs (the sixth, seventh and eighth volumes), for a total cost of $44.85. Even though those TPBs would then contain four more issues (the HC contains issues 23 through 30, the 3 TPBs contain issues 21 through 32), the hardcover is in an oversized format. The larger pages allow Lapham to showcase the art more, and the extra space means he can include many extras like script excerpts and sketches, making it well worth the price.
All Content ©2003 Steve Higgins, All Rights Reserved.
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| :. ABOUT STEVE |
Steve Higgins is an English instructor who loves comics so much he offers a class on them in the spring. His wife Sarah hates comics with a passion and wishes Steve would stop spending so much money on them each week.
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| :. ABOUT STEVE ( CONTINUED) |
Favorite Comics: Doom Patrol, Y the Last Man, Alias, Queen and Country, X-Statix, 21 Down, Paradigm
Favorite Movies: The Fisher King, Heavenly Creatures
Favorite Bands: Radiohead, Counting Crows, Weezer
Favorite Writers: Kurt Vonnegut, John Irving, Russell Banks
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| © 2003 - Gray Haven Magazine & All Authors. |
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