In 1917 New Orleans, a young black man is looking for a gig. He’s a clarinet player. And he’s lucky this time around: he’s landed an audition in a club with his musical hero. Writers Kyle Higgins and Joe Clark set the musical scene in this first issue of Deep Cuts from Image Comics.
Higgins and Clark bring us along on this coming-of-age musical journey. Through the streets of New Orleans, behind the scenes, and down-home in Charles Stewart’s God-respecting neighbourhood. Deep Cuts has the feel of a docudrama, with ’scenes that mean something’, foreshadowing and loads of everyday environmental details.
Artist Danilo Beyruth pencils and inks Deep Cuts, with an eye for the ‘deets’, and a hand for drama. Igor Monti provides the sunlit, deeply-hued surroundings. Monti’s colours push us to the front of the line, to the front of the musical stage, and down behind the ‘bleachers’ where things get mighty shady mighty fast. Letters by Hassan Otsmane Elhaou.
In addition to the twists and turns of the main story, the authors have included a brief ‘record jacket’ profile of Thaddeus Tukes, a young musician of 2023, accompanied by a sheet of his music specially composed for this issue!
Also included is a look at how one page of the comic is laid out, drawn, coloured and lettered.
Overall, Deep Cuts #1 is a good read, if a bit puzzling, due to its mixing of real and prototypical characters. It reads like a biography, but is fictional. Next issue, a new story with Italian artist Helena Masellis illustrating.
Image Comics, Deep Cuts #1, $5.99 for 60 pages of content
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