Darling #3

Darling #3

Source Point Press 2021

Written by Michael Fleizach & Todd Hunt

Illustrated by Dave Mims

Lettered by Zach Turner

A missing girl; a city on the brink of an all-out drug war; and our beloved anti-hero just trying to keep it all together - we're in for one hell of a night. With every page turn, our girl's identity becomes more crystal; with every passing moment Francis becomes more dope sick. Can he stay straight long enough to save her? We're stumbling towards our destiny, now: eyes like glass, veins full of poison, and a cast of boisterous bohemians that are just too strange to be real. But on the off chance they might be, let's strap in. The bloodshed is about to begin; the Queen is dropping by for tea.

Well as the Queen was leaving she was giving the order for off with their heads. Now we open up right where that left off and I have to say this is so much more of a daring do than I had anticipated it being. Of course with Francis hiding out in the bathroom after shooting up a hit he’s really missing out on all the action and somehow I don’t think he sees it that way at all. This is what drugs do though, I’m not up to snuff on heroin so I don’t know if it makes you cowardly but you’ll protect yourself so that you can make it to your next high, nothing else but that matters.

I am a huge fan of 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 presented exceptionally well. The character development we see through the dialogue, Finch’s impromptu sign language, the character interaction as well as how they act and react to the situations and circumstances which they encounter all conspire to make their personalities become so prominent. The pacing is excellent and as it takes us through the pages we’re drawn into this unbelievable situation so fully.

How we see this being structured and how the layers continue to emerge, grow, evolve and strengthen while adding this much depth, dimension and complexity to the story is utterly magnificent to see. It really is impressive that so much can be inferred by the reader so that each one will have a different takeaway. How we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is exceedingly well achieved.

I wish we’d see more backgrounds, especially if we’re going to see something from Francis’ drugged up point of view, because what happened in that bathroom could’ve been stupendous. The linework is clean, crisp and strong and how we see the varying weights being utilised to create this level of detail work throughout the issue is marvellously rendered. How we see the composition within the panels bringing out the depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the story is beautifully done. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a remarkably talented eye for storytelling. The colour work is pretty solid and how we see the various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work show a nice understanding of how colour works. Though again with his drug addled brain there is room for some really inspired work to happen.

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Is it live or is it memorex? We have no idea what Francis is experiencing and what he’s hallucinating thanks to how much and how often he shoots up. That’s half of the interest factor though because we want to know what is real and what if anything isn’t. The boys are doing a bang up job in bringing this heavy heady tale to life with it’s amazing writing, dynamic characterisation and super solid interiors.