It's been a while since Matt Fraction first shared his frenetic and goofy creation, Rex Mantooth, with comicdom, so it was a pleasure to see him back with a much different project. Last of the Independents is as edgy as Mantooth, but it's a much different kind of story. Fraction demonstrates that he's much more than a comedy writer, and he's aided in that effort by some wonderfully gritty and expressive artwork, courtesy of Kieron Dwyer.
A weathered, tough but honorable crook, accompanied by his young lover and their slow-witted but technically skilled friend, decides the time has come for a big score, and they select a bank in a small desert town as their target. Little do they know that another criminal element has a use -- albeit a much different one -- for the same financial institution, and it prompts the equal of a small war between the trio and a seemingly unending parade of wiseguys.
This isn't a black-and-white graphic novel, but more of a brown-and-off-white book. The parchment-like look of the book reinforces the notion that it's a modern Western, and it captures the arid, dirty quality of the setting nicely as well. Dwyer's angular style matches the intensity of the script incredibly well, and I enjoyed how he made excellent of the unconventional format -- horizontal comics layout, as opposed to the usual vertical approach. Dwyer's designs are striking. One can picture Eastwood as Cole, Zeta-Jones as Juice and perhaps Abraham (ER) Benrubi as the lovably disturbing Billy. The action flows quite smoothly, and it remains clear even without the benefit of colors.
There's a wonderfully cinematic quality to this graphic novel. Now, usually when I describe a comic book that way, I refer to the way the artist frames the characters and the action. But that's not all there is to it here. Fraction's script boasts pacing that puts the reader in mind of the big screen. The dialogue is concise, with a witty edge. This isn't a talking-heads kind of movie-comic, but one that focuses the reader's attention on the characters' actions and emotions.
Fans of Preacher should rejoice at the release of this original graphic novel, and it's very much in the same vein. Preacher was a modern Western as well, and like that Garth Ennis/Steve Dillon effort, it incorporates other genres as well. The characters, actions and sexuality of the book are, for the most part, quite gratuitous, and Fraction and Dwyer make no apology for it. Nor should they. Last of the Independents is the sort of over-the-top effort one might expect to arise if such creative minds as Quentin Tarantino, the Coen brothers and Jerry Bruckheimer were to collaborate on a project in order to combine their strengths and shed their weaknesses.
