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SPAGHETTI WESTERN original graphic novel
Highly Recommended (10/10)
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Oni Press
Writer/Artist: Scott Morse
Editors: Jamie S. Rich & James Lucas Jones
Price: $11.95 US |
When you name your graphic novel Spaghetti Western, you're throwing down a gauntlet. In the reader's mind, you've just compared yourself to Clint Eastwood/Sergio Leone movies, some of the most beloved westerns in the genre. Morse throws the reader a bit of a curveball, though, because Spaghetti Western isn't a western. Well, it is, but in the same sense that AIT/Planet Lar's Last of the Independents is a western. Morse's tale is a deliberately paced tale of a bank robbery with the feel of an indie flick, right down to some very clever and even funny flashback sequences at key moments that reveal important information. Western trappings, western spirit, modern-day setting, and the result is pretty likely to make the western fans happy, and guaranteed to make the Morse fans (like me) ecstatic.
In his introduction, Morse sets the mood for Spaghetti Western pretty effectively, making the unusual comparison between the western genre and Tex Avery/Chuck Jones screwball comedy and suggesting that readers put out some Ennio Morricone in the background. That's good advice, because it definitely helps you get into the mood that Morse is going for, although you certainly don't need the music to get it, because with the sepia toned art, Morse's amazing design sense and the slow, deliberate pacing of the story, the mood is clear from the get-go.
Morse is a phenomenally talented painter as well as someone who has worked in animation and comics, and Spaghetti Western is almost a mixed media project. While the sequential storytelling is strong, the real strength of Spaghetti Western is that it is done in sequential full page illustrations. The opening pages show a sort of empty, quiet town, a beautiful set of establishing shots that sets the mood for the piece, and the way that the robbery unfolds, with each shocking moment being a moment, a full-on page, allows for a terrific mix of slow pace and sudden speed. The closest comparison would be to another media, that of the animation of Samurai Jack or Powerpuff Girls, although Morse is doing it with the illusion of movement rather than by actual movement.
So visually, you know that anything Morse does is going to be accomplished, but this is also one of the stronger examples of his writing skills. The mystery of why these guys are in costume robbing a bank is solved in a pretty funny and yet poignant way that plays into Morse's view of the spaghetti western as subgenre of comedy, and while it's a pretty simple premise if you step back from it, the way that it's laid out uses just the right amount of space to tell the story. There's a definite sadness to Spaghetti Western, especially when we learn the secret of both of the protagonists that led them down this path, but there's also an undeniable joy in seeing these two live out the bank robbery and in seeing the more modern, vicious incarnation of a bank robber foiled by intelligence rather than gunplay.
Spaghetti Western is another notch in Morse's already crowded belt of comic-book accomplishments. It is not, as many of these projects that echo a specific genre are, aimed specifically at the fans of the spaghetti western. I'm a relative neophyte in the world of spaghetti westerns, and in fact not as much a fan as some of my friends, and I still loved this tale. While it definitely echoes the genre that it is named for, it is also just a very engaging, human story with gorgeous, gorgeous artwork.
This comic book was not among this week's new releases.
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