Comic Review: On The Stump GN (Image Comics)

Image Comics releases a comic about fighters who are taking death matches over politics-related causes in the U.S in On The Stump the graphic novel.

So here we have a comic that focuses on politics, while the fighters are going on death matches for a presidential campaign or politics. Honestly, if this whole thing were an election dream match between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, I wonder who will win on a deathmatch this month? But this time, this story is like Street Fighter or UFC in politics, in a nutshell, I just hope that this would be a thing between Trump and Biden. The story is written by Chuck Brown, and illustrated by Prenzy. Chuck is the Eiser and Ringo award-winning writer and co-creator of Th Punisher and Black Panther for Marvel, Rotten Apple for Dark Horse, Bitter Root for Image Comics. He has been self-publishing his work for over 18 years and has also written comics for one of the famous webcomics around. And Prenzy is a comic artist based in Italy and worked on some different comics and animation industries such as Image and Dreamworks.

The front cover shows a distinctive cover art of a black man fighter who is being fisted by his opponent who happens to have his fist look like an American flag. And I dunno, maybe it’s original because the way when that American fist punches him, his face is being squished and pounded drastically while blood is coming out of his mouth. Whoever that fighter is, must be an American patron. So the story starts when there’s a dream match in Washington DC where two fighters is pounding each other in mixed martial arts and wrestling, and the funny thing is that those two fighters are senators. Unlike reading another graphic novel called “No One Left to Fight” on Image, this comic is like having America making death matches legal, which is more to have Biff Tannen allowed to make gambling legal. After the match, Senator Hammer ran into an FBI agent and talked about how the other senator is trying to pass legislation to allow them to be killed in the ring. She thought that Sweet Smell Shaw supposed to be beaten him to death, however, there are a lot of death matches than meets the eye. Because this comic shows more than any conspiracy, but on top of that Hammer made a deal from a fat face painted douche and stabbed him in the arm. We get another story from the fighters who are also senators, and probably more powerful than those two. One of them just trashed the whole office over someone who wrote a story about a bearded Irish fighter and fought against the writer who is a formidable opponent to him, and ended up killing him on a street fight in the alley by slicing up his head. To be certain, this comic is more like giving everyone death matches over politics between senators, but it almost makes this comic to become brutal in every street fight they fought over and over. At the end of the comic, Hammer had a flashback of 20 years ago fighting against that bearded fighter before his wife gave birth to a child, but now, after 20 years, they’re going all out, but after the match, Hammer burst out to the audience claiming that this fight is just a piece of the massacre that everything is entertainment to them, but this is sick and it makes this understandable that deathmatches are a disturbance kind of sport because a man just died in the ring. Does it makes this so honorable, Hammer claimed that killing became a part of something much worse. And then he walked away after giving such a meaningful speech to the audience and not to cheer about it.

The story is kind of brutal, to begin with, but reading this comic gives a lot of action sequences to know what fighting for their lives looks like. Making a story about senators fighting and using martial arts over politics is just sick, I rather have my drink taste more like leaf produced protein with some sugar and milk on it, or maybe a protein drink if you ask me. The art is so unreal to have a story such as this, but the artist made these character designs so well with the expressions and physique. We get a lot of examples of the characters with action poses while they fight and whenever they were expressing themselves, and their faces make it so real that I have to look back on the previous comics that I’ve read in comparison. I do like his art style because it makes the characters look more serious as it should be. Whenever I look at the character designs at the end of the book, it makes it more understandable to describe the character’s background and physique. As much as this story is becoming more brutal, it’s more epic for adult readers to read this story that is related to religion and politics in such a matter of time whenever they fight. So, On The Stump is a story filled with modern-day politics but in a violent way to settle something in a barbaric way.