Bettie Page #04

Bettie Page #04

Dynamite Entertainment 2020

Written by Karla Pacheco

Illustrated by Vincenzo Federici

Coloured by Ellie Wright

Lettered by Becca Carey

The twisty-turny tropical mystery continues! WHO is the killer? WHEN will they get off the island? WHY is Bettie Page the most qualified detective within a thousand miles? HOW are the elephants SO adorable!?!?

It has been a hot minute since I have spent quality time with Bettie. This series from Dynamite has been phenomenal, each iteration of it has been exceptionally well told. So while she has been a spy and dealt with mythical figures so this by far is her most dangerous story yet. I mean that because women in Hollywood with their backstabbing and viciousness knows no bounds and from what we can see here this shoot is no exception. It has been a who dunnit from the moment they set foot on this island and it hasn’t let up for a moment.

I am a fan of the way that this is being told. The story & plot development that we see here through the way that the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented extremely well. I have to say that with so many moving parts, or people who have a version of events all their own, the way that this is told so that we see the way each one wants us to see it. It really is rather genius really trying to sift through which version of events is the real one and which ones are the ones they wish were real. The pacing here is superb and as takes us through the pages revealing the story and its twists and turns along the way we get to see so much more than we might have bargained for.

I like how we see this being structured and how the layers within the story keep moving froward throughout. How we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow is really rather nicely done. I am having a blast with this as Bettie and Pat continue to make themselves into these detectives between what appears to be some uhm okay I am going to call it fetish work.

The interiors here are really rather good. The linework is fantastic and I really like how we see the Elephant throughout the book, it’s got some great realism to it that excited me. How the varying weights are being utilised to create the detail work that we see is beautifully rendered. The style of the hair along is worth its weight in gold and Miss Suzy yeah that’s something that catches the attention and keeps us fascinated. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a remarkable eye for storytelling. The colour work is sensational! I like how we see the various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work is rendered beautifully.

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I love how the story keeps moving forward and then with the ending what it is, that’s a cliffhanger alright. I think I know who it is but then again that’s half the fun isn’t it, thinking you are right and then coming back just to see if you are. Of course with so many women trying to manipulate each other and the authorities well it’s quite the show and trying to pin on one lesbian or another well that’s just as intriguing as if they were men. There is a whole dynamic happening within these pages that normally wouldn’t be shown in the era in which it occurs and that is just one more layer of reasoning why this story is so good.