Moonshine #26

Moonshine #26

Image Comics 2016

Written by Brian Azzarello

Illustrated by Eduardo Risso

Lettered by Jared K. Fletcher

“THE WELL,” Part Four

Joe the Boss’ boys are tearing New York apart searching for the Holts gang after the slaughter of last issue. When Lou falls into their crosshairs, will he keep quiet or sing like the sinner he is?

What I love about this series is that it reads like its a soap opera in that you can pick it up at any given time and read this without feeling you’ve missed out on anything or you’ve been left behind, not to mention how much time passes between issues. It’s such a great easy read that is highly entertaining and bloody fun to boot. I love reading this series and how the bootlegging werewolves and the New York Mob are at odds over who is going to sell Moonshine while Prohibition is still on the books. Mind you Prohibition is almost over and soon it’s all going to be moot but in the meantime its about honour and money and of course staying alive. So where does Lou fall into all this, he was sent to negotiate, got turned into a Werewolf and is now pretty much squarely between the two groups.

I am thoroughly enjoying 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 dialogue, the character interaction as well as how they act and react to the situations and circumstances which they encounter does a magnificent job in fleshing them out continuously. The pacing is superb and as it takes us through the pages revealing more and more of the story I marvel at its complexity and audaciousness.

I greatly appreciate the way that we see this being structured as well as how the layers within the story continue to grow, evolve and strengthen. I’m very much enjoying how the avenues that we see being explored and those that are opening which contain the twists & turns as well as the characterisation and whether they work with the main arc or swirl around it they add this great depth, dimension and complexity to the story. How everything works together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is achieved exceedingly well.

I like the interiors here greatly. It has a very kind of simple style to it but it’s still very expressive and interestingly rendered. The linework is clear, crisp and strong and how the varying weights are being utilised to showcase the detail work is sensational. The creativity and imagination we see is marvellous and the werewolves themselves are somewhat terrifying to see. I would like to see more backgrounds being utilised but then how we see the composition within the panels to bring out the depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the story does a fantastic job. 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 interesting and how we see the various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work is exceptionally well rendered. I like how we see the night and the muted colour palate and how that works to such a spectacular degree.

​

I’m totally into how we see Frye being a much more formidable man than anyone has given him credit for to date. I can’t wait to see the direction that this story is going to go in next and how these two powerhouse forces are going face off against one another. With all this going on we’ve still got Tempest and her role in all of this and what she has been scheming to boot. With some stellar writing and interesting characterisation wrapped around with these fantastic interiors shows why this series is still going strong.