This week from Image, we spy with our little eyes: Too Dead to Die. It’s a new tale from writer Mark Guggenheim and artist Howard Chaykin.
But there is more here than meets the eye, actually; it’s a trick on the reader: the ‘return’ of Simon Cross is a bit of fiction, and so is all the ‘comic bibliography’ that suggests that there was a Simon Cross comic title in the 1980s. There wasn’t. It’s a Flick of the BIC, a figure of speech, a con.
Mark Guggenheim invents the dashing male spy-in-a-suit jacket and also invents a fake comic history of the character.
Howard Chaykin draws this thriller with Chaykin’s usual cheerful panache: big dewy-eyed femme fatales, caricatured characters, and loads of fun, explosive action scenes.
It’s over the top, in a trope-tropical good way. We join Simon Cross in his later years, looking in the rear-view mirror at his thirties. He’s now older, slower, but still on the prowl for the ladies, and up for a good sky-dive into danger. It’s pistols at several paces, and it’s fast-paced and spicy. Chaykin’s trademark exaggerated expressions, the Big Foot semi-cartoon poses, the ultra closeups on the face, the ultra-emphasized ‘wait for it’ beats…
Colourist Yen Nitro gives us all the wrinkles with shiny serum, the multi-lined faces and softly glowing shadows, the reflections on years past, the exotic blast of the horns of plenty. Everything is a lot, every good-natured surface is reflecting something in a spyglass. Letterer Ken Bruzenak, no stranger to danger, enhances the proceedings with terse chapter heads, chopped-off dialogue tails, and reloads of readable sound effects.
Special bonus short stories are illustrated by José Luis Garcia Lopez, Michael Golden, and Howard Chaykin.
Image Comics, Too Dead To Die, $19.99 for 180 pages, Teen +
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