By: David Hine (story/script), Shaky Kane (story/art) & Richard Starkings & Jimmy Betancourt (letters)
The Story: Steve Nayman starts to wonder which reality is “real”: The one where he is the Coffin Fly or the one with his day-to-day existence.
What’s Good: The weirdness continues in this month’s Bulletproof Coffin, but what is nice is that we’re starting to see the overall story develop too. And, that’s a good thing. For as much as I love creator-owned comics, many start out really strong with a cool hook or two, but then fail to deliver any meat for the story such that my issue #3 or so it isn’t “novel” anymore and the story isn’t working for you either. That’s just a lousy feeling. I’m not going to jump right up and say that Bulletproof Coffin has turned the corner with this issue, but this issue feels like a transition where they are trying to change things up.
And I mean that in a very good way. We still get the Bulletproof Coffin fun that we’ve gotten used to, namely the fake pre-comics code spoof of a old comic book (which are still just magic to me), but in this issue the flash back to Coffin Fly and Ramona (fighting zombie soldiers) starts to work within the context of the overall story that Hine/Kane are telling. It is hard to tell exactly what is going on, but we start to see some explanations for some of the other weirdness that has been going on in our protagonist’s life so far.
I love Shaky Kane’s art! It is just a huge homage to comics of yesteryear. Honestly, for all some people gush about how advanced comic art was in the 1940’s and how we never see that kind of art anymore, mostly that is a good thing (if I’m being honest) because the vast majority of the art was not good. What Kane does that is so special is pay tribute to that very flat style of art with all its weird anatomy and non-dynamic characters, but he does it in such a way that it is (a) clear that Kane isn’t a crummy artist who just draws like this all the time and (b) is clearly a homage to those old comics and NOT an attempt to make fun of them.
Finally, these guys could do an entire book of just fake ads like the one printed on the back cover for “The Amazing Hollywood Babe Magnet” which will give you the woman-drawing power of “Stars like: Tony Curtis, Mickey Rooney, and the irresistible Ernest Borgnine”. Ernest Borgnine?!?!?! LOL…. Not to mention the humor in making fun of the sexism of old ads as the “Babe Magnet” is only one step removed from roofies. It probably would have been okay to advertise roofies in comics books back in the 50’s.
What’s Not So Good: As much as I loved a few of the mind-benders that they tossed into the story, I’m still a little worried about whether this title will really turn the corner to have a good “story”. By that I mean, I enjoyed starting to see how the pieces are fitting together, but I’m not sure if I think the picture they are painting is good enough that it’ll make me happy if issues 5-6 do away with the old-timey flashbacks.
Mind you, that is just me being cautiously cynical because (like all comic readers), I’ve been burned before with new/great comics that blow out after 5-6 issues.
Conclusion: The novelty of this story isn’t wearing off. I love the homage to old-timey comics!
Grade: B
– Dean Stell
Grade
Conclusion