I don't smoke and I've never shot a gun, but Smoke and Guns makes me want to do both. And if there was a sexy girl involved, that wouldn't be bad either. Smoke and Guns is the debut graphic novel of Kirsten Baldock, and with any luck, we'll be seeing a lot more of her, because Baldock writes macho action-adventure with a feminine twist like nobody's business, and Smoke and Guns offers up an adrenaline rush alongside belly laughs and some characters you can root for even though (or maybe because) they're arrogant, destructive and dangerous. She's accompanied on visuals by Fabio Moon, a Brazilian artist who does racy chases, beautifully chaotic mayhem and truly sexy girls and basically hits every note the script asks for perfectly. Smoke and Guns is probably some of the best escapist entertainment comics will offer up this year.
Three pages. Three pages in, and we're off to the races. "Fast-paced" doesn't even begin to cover it. Smoke and Guns is a book where it's as much about attitude as it is story, but there's always something happening. To be honest, this book probably could have gotten by on its high concept about costumed cigarette girls with homicidal tendencies, strong territorial inclinations and the guns to back up both, but Baldock provides a great action plot to go with it. The rivalry between cigarette girls is established quickly, the rules that our heroine Scarlett is rebelling against spelled out just as quickly, and by the time the book hits what would be the end of its first issue if it weren't a graphic novel, the two protagonists of the book have blown up an entire bar. Baldock could give a lesson on pacing and story to a lot of the top writers in comics right now, because Smoke and Guns grabs you from the first page and never lets up.
Smoke and Guns has strong pacing and an interesting plot, but it's got flash to go with the substance. Scarlett is a great protagonist, sexy and flirtatious, smart but with an anarchist streak that gets her into trouble, tough but vulnerable enough that the reader can get a sense when she's in danger, and with a great sense of humor. There are any number of great, funny moments as Scarlett makes her way through the other cigarette girls' districts, her attitude a mixture of casual annoyance and self-amusement, and Baldock has a great way of summing up an effective scene with a couple lines from Scarlett. Something like "Annie, District 10 is full of rabid cheerleaders. Wish you were here" is a perfect capper to a scene wherein Scarlett escapes, well, a bunch of rabid cheerleaders, and the way she deals with a martial arts opponent in Chinatown echoes one of the great comedic moments of Raiders of the Lost Ark without just aping the gag completely. Baldock has mastered the Shane Black style one-liner, a sort of knowingly cheesy, almost cliched bit of action dialogue that still works because of a self-aware wink at the audience and a memorable word construction.
While Smoke and Guns reads in a lot of ways like a standard action movie with better-than-average writing and style, there is one thing that's a particularly notable change from the usual action story: It's all about the women. Given how much the action genre is a guy's realm, it's kind of funny to note that the guys in Smoke and Guns are more or less window dressing, or at best brief romantic interests or professional dalliances. The primary motivators, the primary antagonists, everyone who's actually out there doing stuff, those are the women. Smoke and Guns has a sensibility that definitely fits the "macho" style, full of guns and violence, drinking and smoking, but it is also undeniably a feminine book, showing the guys that "anything you can do, I can do better" without coming off as some kind of misandry.
It doesn't hurt that Smoke and Guns has a visual style that is as slick and distinctive as Baldock's writing style. Fabio Moon's women are tall and curvy, but there's a lovely bit of toughness and attitude to them as well. He's also got a lovely eye for design, as little details like the "District 5" sign or a few key background elements instantly give a sense of the city that Scarlett is in, or the district she's passing through. More importantly, perhaps, is his ability to build up and release tension for action scenes. The bar scene that quickly erupts into a brawl between Scarlett, Annie and the Belle is one terrific example. The "pile on" of the cheerleaders and face-off with a Chinatown doll are two more. Then there are just the perfect scenes, like the one of Scarlett sliding across the hood of a car, or the Chinatown doll launching a high kick at Scarlett's head, that are just as effective at using a snapshot moment to convey action. Basically, Moon's work is gorgeous, stylized and perfect for the kind of action storytelling called for here.
Smoke and Guns, like the cigarettes its sexy protagonist offers up for sale, is a smooth blend, mixing equal parts of macho action and feminine wiles so that you're not entirely sure which part of the story comes from where. It's recognizable enough in structure to be just remarkably readable, but different enough in style to be completely fresh, and if someone out there in Hollywoodland doesn't try to snap up the movie rights shortly after the book hits the market, I'll be shocked.
