THE GUNWITCH: OUTSKIRTS OF DOOM #2
Recommended (7/10)
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Oni Press
Writer: Dan Brereton
Artist: Ted Naifeh
Letters: John Dranski
Editor: Jamie S. Rich
Price: $2.95 US |
Though it's a bit hard to keep track of all the characters Brereton juggles in this story, the complex, almost political story of a supernatural gang war makes for some interesting -- even challenging -- reading. Naifeh captures the feel of the world of Brereton's Nocturnals adeptly as well.
The Gunwitch -- the undead, mute gunslinger that hangs out with the Nocturnals -- finds himself embroiled in a three-way gang war, among two rival factions of vampires and the human residents of a small town. As they wrangle over a golden treasure and the remains of the first vampire, the Gunwitch tries to protect the life of a little girl that's caught in the middle, while playing the various sides against one another.
Naifeh's art conveys Brereton's sense of style wonderfully while not going so far as to mimic it completely. He captures the angular look of Brereton's designs nicely. On the other hand, I found the backgrounds to be lacking in detail a little too often. The barrow backdrop was lovely, but otherwise, one doesn't get much of a sense of where these characters are.
I missed the first issue of this limited series due to a recent move, so it took me a while to figure out why the Gunwitch was having anything to do with the malevolent ghouls. Then it was all explained: he was falling into a familiar role, as the protector of a child. It gave the story a consistency with other Nocturnals books in which the Gunwitch is Halloween Girl's guardian angel.
I enjoyed the fact that the central conflict here doesn't really involve the title character. Though occasionally it's hard to keep straight which faction wants what, the complexity of plot grants the conflict a status of something greater than simply a gang rumble. The vampires and the humans seem to be engaging in what one could almost describe as the politics of violence.
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