Blood, Skulls & Chrome #1

Blood, Skulls & Chrome #1

Second Sight Publishing 2021

Written by Hannu Kesola

Illustrated by Mohammad Ramlan & Marcelo Salaza

The Texas-based outlaw motorcycle club, The Steel Knights have lost a big deal from the Mexican Cartel to rival the Lake Street Boyz gang. When the two reckless members of the MC kill the cartel's liaison, the MC soon find themselves fighting for survival against the threats from outside and within.

The opening here is fantastic and it really kind of sets the stage for the story at hand. We see this execution of a man whom is currently being utilised to send a message to the cartel for choosing a rival gang to move their Meth. This of course is going to set of a chain reaction of events that are going to send everyone in this crazy duster whirlwind. Also I have to say that during this opening we see Cale and Garth and immediately you know that one is crazy and the other there’s more to than meets the eye. Don’t for a moment think this a good thing as I don’t think one of them is more than plant to set the Steel Knights up in a most spectacular fashion. That is my assessment of what we see and I could be wrong but somehow I don’t think that I am.

I really am enjoying the way that this is being told. The story & plot development we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented exceedingly well. The character development that we see through the dialogue, the character interaction and how they act and react to the situations and circumstances they encounter do wonders in fleshing them out as people. Also Jack’s got a lot going on and I cannot wait to learn what even the pleasures of the flesh couldn’t do to soothe him. The pacing is superb and as it takes us through he pages revealing the story, introducing us to these characters and this world does a magnificent job in keeping the reader wanting more.

I appreciate how we see this being structured and how the layers within the story emerge. It is within these layers where the questions are raised and overall scope of the story starts to really take shape. How we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is achieved extremely well.

The interiors here are really nice to see. The linework is fantastic and how we see the varying weights and techniques being utilised to create the detail work is extremely well rendered. Not going to lie I am disappointed we didn’t see Jack in the buff when she pushed her away, not even a shot of his arse and in this day and age no one should be afraid to show that especially when we pretty much see all of her. I like that we see backgrounds as we do throughout the book and how they work within the composition of the panels to show us the depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope of the story. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a lovely eye for storytelling. The colour work we see is fantastic. How the various hues and tones within the colours are being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work shows a great eye for how colour works.

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This is a great book. We don’t see anything else even remotely close to it on shelves and that alone is great to see. The Steel Knights seem to have fallen on some hard times and I’m sure they’ve weathered worse than this but I do like how we see the reaction that Jack has to it all and how the others just seem to go about their business. I’m looking forward to seeing where this is going to go next considering how this issue ends. Second Sight is making a very good case on being the up and coming publishing house that you need to pay attention to as they’ve got a strong line of books already hitting shelves.