While I've enjoyed the first two installments (three if you count Couscous Express) of The Couriers, Couriers 3 is easily the strongest of the batch so far. This is unapologetic goofy action fun, with Wood providing some of the most foul-mouthed, street-smart young teen protagonists I've ever seen and Rob G serving up fast-paced, manga style artwork that is ideal for the tone of the book. That tone? Crazy balls to the wall action with a side of outrageous humor, in the Tarantino vein but with a definite skewed sensibility unique to Wood and Rob G. The world of the Couriers is one in which gunfights, car chases and even a showdown with a military helicopter takes place in the streets of New York on a regular basis, and Moustafa and Special, the leads of the book, can have phenomenal skills in these areas despite their young age. Is it terribly feasible, in a real world sort of way? Not really, but it is fun as hell.
So the previous Couriers graphic novels have shown us Moustafa and Special as twenty-something independent couriers dealing with dangerous foes on the streets. With this graphic novel, Wood and G go back to the "secret origin" of the pair to show us how they met, why and what led them to their unusual career. This isn't the cue to explore the home lives and backgrounds of Special and Moustafa, though... instead, we jump right to the action, which finds Special working as the 15-year-old bodyguard/runner/etc. for Johnny Funwrecker, Chinatown crime boss and 12-year-old Moustafa dealing weed and hoping to move up. This is definitely a graphic novel that glamorizes the criminal life style, as we watch Moustafa and Special collect protection money, deal drugs and even terrorize some poor innocent yuppies, but it's presented in such a way that we see the humor in all of it rather than the real world consequences of activities like these.
The byword for Couriers has always been action, and The Ballad of Johnny Funwrecker has plenty of that. Special's impressive rampage against three would-be assassins in the opening sequence and Moustafa's subway run are quick and dirty preludes to the main event, a fast-paced shootout and chase throughout the streets of New York as Moustafa and Special attempt to play Funwrecker and the FBI against one another and come out on top. This isn't a well-planned, immaculate caper, but instead a half-assed plan cooked up by a couple teenagers that relies mostly on guts, luck and a whole hell of a lot of bullets. That's pretty much the way the Couriers always works, and if you can get into that ludicrous, adrenaline-fueled mindset, you'll find yourself enjoying yourself.
Because truthfully, the Couriers can seem kind of silly if you're not in the right mood. Johnny Funwrecker is an inside joke from the Larry Young forum, and may be the goofiest and most inappropriate name for a Chinatown ganglord ever, but it's so fitting to the over-the-top style of The Couriers that I don't mind. Same with the notion of a 15-year-old as streetwise and skilled as Special, or this whole notion of "honor among thieves" that Wood drops in our laps at the end, or the insane notion that Funwrecker would even have a military helicopter, much less be able to fly it through New York shooting shit up without anyone noticing. It's action movie logic, but it works, in large part because the action and the humor is so sharp and so much fun.
There are some stylistic touches to The Couriers that I really got a big kick out of in this particular volume as well. I've always loved the introductory captions, but Wood throws a nice twist into them this time out by giving us the intros of Special and Moustafa as they are and as they were. The little RPG reference to "stats" during training cracked me up, and I liked that there was a little easter egg for fans of Couscous Express who catch a certain little girl peeking out behind the counter at her future boyfriend. The Couriers is pretty impressive in that it contains untold inside jokes for the faithful, but is still a remarkably accessible read for those who have never read it before.
Rob G's artwork is perfect for the style of The Couriers, because it's got that same manic, loose energy to it. The artwork isn't often that detailed, with everything from guns to cars to the military helicopter getting the basic shape and utility clear but not featuring the kind of realistic detail that is often used on that kind of hardware, especially in this genre. The same is true of the backdrops, which more suggest New York City than really showing it to the reader. However, Rob G's stuff has it where it counts, which is in imaginatively choreographed action sequences and great comedic timing. The attitude of the book, and that's really no small amount of its appeal, is down as much to the art style as it is to the writing. 9/10
