Night Hunters #3

Night Hunters #3

Floating World Comics 2021

Written by David Baker

Illustrated by Alexis Ziritt

Lettered by Robert Negrete

Everything goes downhill. There’s no turning back. The only answer is pick up your gun and put one foot in front of the other.

I don’t know precisely what it is about this book that I really, really like but it’s definitely there. This is very nontraditional for my tastes and yet the story is so well written and Alexis’ interiors are so underground comix that I grew up with that I can’t escape how they make the reader feel. This is some definitely odd stuff and that it’s set in South America kind of makes sense what with the disparity between rich and poor being what it already is, there is no real middle class to speak of mind you. Add in the whole mechanicalized aspect, not quite cyborg but close, and things begin to really go in a direction that could make some uncomfortable and others hyper intrigued. Either way it’s really well done to the point where you just want to know more and more about this world they all have to live in.

I really 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 exceptionally well. The whole deal with him and his father that is some heavy writing right there and leads directly into the character development. How a man who uses a click to communicate can be so expressive through that one red eye is astonishingly unreal to me. It is utterly fabulous and the way we see those around him are fleshed out beautifully. The pacing here is superb and as it takes us through the pages revealing more and more of the story we see a much fuller picture begin to take shape.

I like how this is being structured and how we see the layers within the story continue to grow, change and evolve over time. How everything he’s done feels for naught right now, if that changes we’ll see and I hope so, is a lot of emotion coming at us. The way everything works together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well move the story forward is delightful to experience.

The interior artwork is super crazy. It’s erratic, chaotic and the linework is almost all over the place and yet the amount of emotion and feeling that brings the reader is stupendous. The composition within the panels and how backgrounds and foregrounds are utilised to bring us this depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the book is extraordinary. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a remarkable eye for storytelling. The colour work is nicely rendered as well. The solid colour use like a properly packed in tattoo really makes the interiors pop.

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There is depth and complexity to the story that you don’t really expect to see but it is so nice and subtle that really makes for some interesting reading. I mean that a mechanical man is taking care of his father who’s almost been replaced with mechanical parts and since he’s a cop those where he live don’t want him there. It’s harsh, it’s raw and it is completely honest and sometimes that’s what hurts the most. You can’t find something that has so many different aspects, techniques and things you just don’t think should work together but totally do. This is so intelligently written with smart characterisation and some dynamic interior artwork.