“There was….. bloooood…. on the saddle”, sang Tex Ritter. And indeed, in Image’s That Texas Blood #3, with its logo shaped like, yes, the American state of Texas, blood is on the cover and spread all over.
The sheriff, tired and trying to relax and unwind. Randy, the prodigal brother, insistent on finding the truth about his dead sibling, and confronting his own checkered and speckled past. Making alliances for the short term, with a longer-term vision in mind. If he survives long enough.
Chris Condon writes real people in real trouble, fictionalizing it to smooth out the ennuie, the boring ‘too real and tiresome’ parts. Condon keeps it tight and tense, the present not always a gift from the past; the blast from the past not always one of comfort and retro-love. The surprises keep coming, to the reader’s afternoon delight.
It’s the calm before the storm, but it’s always storming somewhere in this comic book.
Jacob Phillips on art, gives us the framing, the compressed emotion, the visual disturbances, the hotel room colour gone happy. The warm and cool hues, with the passion and persistence of Randy, then the progression of the story. Broken down, frame by frame, panel by panel, the characters reveal their flaws, their intentions, cleanly rendered and clearly frustrating. We want to reach into the story, rearrange the furniture, and make things better.
This book gets better and better, the best we can do is purchase a copy and support our local sheriff.
Image, That Texas Blood #3, $3.99 for 25 pages of content. Mature
Newsdesk
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