Dead End Kids: Suburban Job #4

Dead End Kids: Suburban Job #4

Source Point Press 2021

Written by Frank Gogol

Illustrated by Nenad Cviticanin

Lettered by Sean Rinehart

Secrets. Betrayal. Sacrifice. Caught red-handed with money they didn't steal, Torie, Brian, and Amna make a last-ditch effort to survive. But with nowhere left to run, they'll have to meet Ray-Ray and his goons head-on... with baseball bats and steel pipes. It's all been leading here as 2021's indie hit grinds to its bloody conclusion.

We pick up this issue where last issue left off with the kids getting busted trying to stick it to the dealer. This issue may be the conclusion of this arc but after it’s all said and done we get this snapshot of what is in store for these three friends and honestly I’d wish that’d been left out and let their future be what the reader envisioned it to be. Now what I really like about this is that Frank knows how to create a group of people who can demonstrate their friendship in ways that the bonds are there for life no matter what life may throw at them. I like that about him, Frank, and he’s got the chops and possibly friendships to draw from to make it feel natural and normal.

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 presented extremely well. I also really like that much like real life there are things that do not go according to plan and it proves life can be messy. The character development here is phenomenal and I love it because of what I have mentioned before and just the overall sense you get from the characters. The pacing is superb and as it takes us through the pages revealing the twists & turns along the way we it really helps to tie things up nicely.

I am enjoying the way that this is structured and how we see the layers within the story coming to a head. I greatly appreciate the way that Torie locked them up but they got out and show her what friendship and loyalty is all about. 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 cute. I wouldn’t mind if there were a little more crisp, clean and sharp linework in use but it does what it needs to. The more all-ages style that we see is a little bit deceiving with the content of the story but the fact that we see it done so well and that it utilises backgrounds the way it does makes it feel so joyful. The way that they bring us depth perception, that 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 marvellous eye for storytelling. The colour work is quite nicely rendered as well. The various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work shows a great understanding of how to utilise colour to its fullest.

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Friendship that is what this is really all about and the ramifications of having those people by your side that will go through it all with you no matter what. Robbing a drug dealer, sure no biggie, it’s like one of those memes that you see where it says you get sent this photo what’s the first thing you say? It really is a smartly written story that makes you envious of the adventure they’ve had and that family isn’t always who you’re born into but who you choose. Frank gets another gold star here for how this written.