Bigs and Tiny #5

Bigs and Tiny #5

Blackbox Comics 2020

Written by Ramel Hill

Illustrated by Federico Sabbatini

Coloured by Andrea Celestini

Lettered by Ed Dukeshire

Things heat up as New York's finest combine forces with Santino to bring the fight to Pieris Industries, headquarters of the New York Syndicate.

This has been one of those books that really takes us by surprise and delivers the opening arc of a series that makes excited for its potential future. I say this because well this is such an oddball and offbeat book where we get to see the power of friendship and the effect it can have on these characters. Of course having a secret organisation that is in the process of creating their own version of a super power army led by some mad scientists and a mysterious figure we know nothing of adds to the intrigue factor.

I like the way that this is being told. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is really rather well presented. I am a fan of seeing how these mercenaries are being utilised and then what happens when they aren’t any longer on the leash as it were. The character development has been pretty amazing and that it encompasses all the characters that we meet and not just the heroes is just an added bonus. How we see this being structured and how the layers within the story continue to move through give me hope that this really is only the first arc. After all we’ve got our trio, the cops, the bad guys and of course the truck driver so yeah there’s still plenty out there for us to continue to explore.

The pacing here is superb and as it takes us through the pages revealing the twists & turns along the way we are treated to an extremely good time. I mean this has been a weird kind of bosom buddies and with the addition of Karenn this is the kind of thing that screams out for more attention. How we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow is outrageously good. So many avenues, so much potential and of course so much left in the tank for us to learn. I wouldn’t mind learning more about the serum for the individuals and how all this came to be.

The interiors here are really fabulous! I like how we see the linework and how the varying weights are being utilised to create the detail work. This is a traditional comic style and it works incredibly well for the subject matter. I want to see backgrounds being utilised throughout the book. This is a great opportunity to really showcase some nice talent and instead I almost feel cheated in a way because of how many blank spaces there are. I do like how we see Small Fry however regardless of what height he’s at there’s always some nice depth perception and sense of scale with him. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a solid eye for storytelling. Ironically or maybe not so much is that the colour work on the backgrounds shows more technique and gradation than we see in the characters themselves. Regardless the way we see the hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create thes hading, highlights and shadow work is beautifully rendered.

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This has been one heck of a fun book to read. We need more of these light hearted types of series that doesn’t take itself too seriously and instead let’s the reader really enjoy getting lost in it.