I read the first issue of The Ride, and was somewhat disappointed that the car was not that tied into the gimmick, and the stories weren't as strong as I would have liked. This is my second exposure to The Ride property, and though the stories are stronger, the art is notably weaker, and so my overall reaction is much the same. The tales at work still are only tangentially tied into the notion of the car, or even into the driving experience, and neither story makes a really strong emotional connection, they're both more driven by the short comics story format of having a twist at the end to give the tale meaning. The stories and art are both solid, but the book still lacks a really strong hook to stand out in a tough and crowded marketplace.
Of the two stories, I found the first, "Iron Road," to be stronger in terms of writing. Dixon's writing always tends toward the formulaic, but he tends to work well within his formula, and the twist ending he provides at the end of the story is a good one, tying the story more directly into the '68 Camaro than the other Ride stories that I've read. Dixon's tale is less action-driven than I usually expect from him, instead exploring the choices a man makes in the Vietnam War and how they come back to effect him in the modern day. Rather than playing up the war crimes or callousness or just plain apathy often attributed to veterans of that war, however, Dixon features a character whose heroic streak had consequences for him, and instead of serving up bitterness or irony, gives a strangely happy ending to the story.
Which is not to say that the second tale, "Language Barrier," is a bad one. Marz bases the story around a gimmick of sorts, using untranslated dialogue to let the readers draw one natural conclusion before the translated dialogue on the last few pages lets us know what the real story is. It's a neat idea for a gimmick, and translating the dialogue on a couple later pages is a good way to do it rather than just leaving it untranslated, but it doesn't quite work. The story is obtuse enough that the relationships never really become clear, and so the surprise ending really isn't much of a surprise until you read the script and realize what we were supposed to be guessing at instead of watching all the gunfire.
One could probably place some of the blame on the artist of "Language Barrier," although I should note that in general I quite like Chris Brunner's style. Using a highly-detailed, exquisitely gray toned style that recalls the work of Becky Cloonan on Demo not to mention various members of Gaijin Studios in terms of story flow, Brunner does an excellent job not just on the slow build of the story early on but in the rapid gunfight that takes place on the roof. However, the strong action leads the reader to focus on the action going on, rather than what lead us there, and so I didn't really catch the importance of the police badge or the misdirection until I read the script. There's plenty of focus shots on the badge in the art, but some fairly limited expressions on the characters' faces and the limited space of the story mean that it doesn't have the impact that it could have.
The art on "Iron Road" is by Rob Haynes, previously known for his work on Marvel's Daredevil. His slick, cel-look style is gone here without David Self to color, and instead the style just looks kind of spare and even borderline amateurish, growing all too sketchy in some panels when Haynes pulls the "camera" back. While stylistically the work isn't particularly stunning, however, the storytelling is pretty solid, and the strong script from Dixon and storytelling fundamentals means that the story comes through loud and clear, lacking a bit of flash and polish but solid in terms of fundamentals.
While I liked The Ride: Foreign Parts slightly more than the first Ride book, it still has some crucial problems that I think hurt the book. First of all, I'm not even remotely a color snob, and I understand the costs of publishing in today's market, but this kind of pop action comic really needs to be in color to work properly, and I think both stories would have benefitted from good color, most notably the first but certainly the second one as well. Secondly, the whole notion of The Ride seems to be tied into a '68 Camaro, and yet the stories usually feel like a story where the Camaro is forced in, rather than being a (forgive the pun) driving force. 6/10
