Jennifer Blood #002

Jennifer Blood #002

Dynamite Entertainment 2021

Written by Fred Van Lente

Illustrated by Vincenzo Federici

Coloured by Dearbhla Kelly

Lettered by Simon Bowland

There's a new sheriff in the criminal-run town of Bountiful, and it's Giulietta Romeo, Europe's top hitwoman! Giulietta's hot on the trail of Jennifer Blood, and needs to get her hands on the legendary vigilante's "war journal" to help her--but the crooked judge who has it wants to strike a deadly bargain for it! It's the annual Fourth of July celebration in Bountiful, and you can bet Jennifer Blood is bringing the fireworks!

The more I see of this book the more I love it! Unlike a town where those in witness protection are placed with changed names or places where they can be rehabilitated this town is run as corrupt as the citizens themselves are and the idea alone is worth its weight in gold. That these folks think Jennifer is dead and have hired Giulietta to deal with a copycat situation. Of course they believe she’s dead but then half the folks in this town have faked their death at some point so who knows what the real answer is and Giulietta while full of herself and overconfident in her skills really seems to be no match for what’s really going on here.

I’m loving 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 that we see through the narration, the dialogue, the character interaction as well as how we see them act and react to the situations and circumstances which they encounter does a magnificent job in fleshing their personalities out even further. The pacing is excellent and as it takes us through the pages revealing more of the story and the revelations the more anxious I am to see what’s going to happen next.

I’m very appreciative of the way that we see this being structured and how the layers within the story continue to emerge, grow, evolve and strengthen. I like how these layers open up new avenues to be explored as well as how they show us the sins of the past that would’ve attracted Jennifer to them in the first place. All of this adds some wonderful depth, dimension and complexity to the story. How we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is immaculately achieved.

I like the style of the interiors here. The linework is fantastic and how we see the varying weights and techniques being utilised to create the detail within the work that we see is amazing stuff. We see some backgrounds being utilised throughout but we could always see more of them to really enhance and expand the moments. They also work within the composition of the panels to bring out the depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the story. 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 various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading highlights and shadow work show a stellar eye for how colour works.

I think this kind of series is sorely missing from the stands right now. She’s like a fixer only; she doesn’t take on clients who are living but for avenging those that have died thanks to the actions of others. That we don’t see a whole lot of things happening outright but through subterfuge so we are basically learning alongside the characters and I love this tactic I think it's brilliantly handled. With some intelligent writing and stunning characterisation all of which is wrapped up in these fantastic interiors make this a surefire standout.