Night of the Cadillacs #1

Night of the Cadillacs #1

Scout Comics 2021

Written by Jake Hearns & Jeff Marsick

Illustrated by Kirk “the Savage” Manley

In the spirit of Lost Boys and Warriors, Night of the Cadillacs is a high-octane, genre-bending mix of horror, hard action, forbidden love, and street culture. Rival supernatural gangs come to earth on an overnight raiding mission to retrieve life-restoring blood from humans. While the gangs battle among themselves for prized Captives, a defiant and charismatic gangbanger breaks free from his crew to go on the run with a rebellious, 18 year old human girl to protect her from his predatory family.

One of the first things I noticed about this book were its visuals and boy are they stunning. The level & quality of work we are seeing here is really rather extraordinary. What this does, for me anyway, is instantly grab the readers’ attention and make them want to know what the story is to go along with the artwork. Boy does seeing these groups really amp up the curiosity in what is going on. There are a lot of pinup pages happening here and I’m not sure they are necessary to the story at the moment as they felt a little out of place, placement wise, because I really think they would’ve benefited from being at the end of the issue.

I actually do very much 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 character development that we see through the dialogue, the character interaction as well as how we see them act and react to the situations and circumstances which they encounter. This helps the personalities really come to the forefront. The pacing is excellent and as it takes us through the pages it introduces us to this world, these characters and this world.

I am liking the way that we see this being structured and how the layers within the story begin to emerge and grow. These layers open up a few avenues, some of which will be explored and others that won’t be but regardless they all add this great depth, dimension and complexity to the story. I like the two frat boys, emphasis on boys, and what they bring to this issue in terms of learning about character. The way everything works together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is impeccably achieved.

It’s time to talk about these mindbogglingly brilliant interiors. What I see is this insane amount of realism in the characters that almost looks like photorealism but not quite that. It’s that insanely good. The linework is exquisite and how we see the varying weights and techniques being utilised to create the level & quality of detail within the work leaves me flabbergasted. Now we see dome excellent use of backgrounds here and I’d like to see more of that being utilised, the blank backgrounds after seeing ones with is kind of a letdown. The way they enhance and expand the moments as well as how they 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 is magnificent. 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 shows a great understanding of how colour works.

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This is exciting, it’s different and it has so much unlimited potential that we see springing from this issue. It doesn’t waste any time getting into the action and how we learn about the characters and the story itself is revealed through how we see the action unfold. It isn’t all at once but a little bit here, a little there and it is a slow drip and it draws the reader in and it leaves you compelled to want to know more. The writing is impeccably done and the characterisation is interesting and the interiors are mindbogglingly brilliant to see and this makes the book one of those unexpected gems that you NEED to read.