‘One Fall’
Written by David F Walker.
Art by Brett Weldele.
Back up feature writer - Ted Pirro.
Creative Consultants - Ted Pirro and Donald Cleveland.
Published by Solid Comix.
35 Pages - Full Colour.
The Story - ‘Professional wrestling is real. So are werewolves, vampires, and really greedy promoters that will stop at nothing to make a dollar.
Jimmy “Resurrecter” King, is a third generation wrestler dealing with the curse of his family – every time he is killed in the ring, he comes back to life. As if that wasn’t bad enough, now the Resurrecter must fight not only for his life, but also for his family, as he is forced to compete in the deadly Continental Gauntlet.’
The Review - Solid Comix was set up by David Walker as a small comics publisher that will allow him to create and release projects close to his heart and you can see that enthusiasm here on the page in One Fall. As a story it starts out as what you might expect or believe is a straightforward tale of wrestling and corrupt businessmen and promoters and then just takes off in about three other directions that I did not expect at all.
‘Eventually Rex’s bloodlust will get the better of him...’
This is the first issue in a proposed five issue mini series that recently (easily) met its funding amount on Kickstarter. The project almost doubled it’s money and I backed it based on my previous enjoyment on work by Walker on books like Power man and Iron Fist, Luke Cage and Cyborg. As with previous projects Walker projects a cool vibe into his scripts and then twists your preconceptions by adding serious jeopardy to the participants. This book is no exception and pulls the rug away from you time and time again.
Although this is still only the first issue there are some great characters on show. Not least of all Jimmy King, the central protagonist, who has that world weary attitude that you get in some of the better boxing and wrestling movies of years gone by. He shows that there is not only a depth to his complicated (mystical?) back story but also it builds a social drama with his family and their attitudes to his involvement in the sport. Also, who can ignore the fact that there is a a werewolf called Lycannus Rex who he has to wrestle!
The art is solid and suits the set-up well. I’d previously seen Brett Weldele’s art on his series from a decade or so ago called The Surrogates (yes, that Bruce Willis movie) and feel that he’s really growing especially in the areas of movement/combat and the melodramas of the fight scenes. I’m usually not a fan of the use of flare effects in comics but here they fit perfectly. There are a couple of moments that I thought were a little bit under rendered in the opening pages but it soon gets going.
There’s also some fun back matter with some faked genre specific adverts and a piece about a historical fight between Hillbilly Humphrey and Jonathon King that’s written by Ted Pirro.
It’ll be interesting to see where this goes and I’ll be looking out for the release of issue 2. I’m also keen to find out if all the issues will be Kickstarted as that’s a model that some people are moving to and using the crowd-funding platform as a way to promote and preorder a series. It’ll be interesting to see how that goes with the more common mainstream drop-off after an issue one problem from a sales perspective on the crowd funding platform. I’m guessing that this one will gain momentum and followers as it runs.
Now I’m of to Drop Kick myself in the face for not pledging at a level that would get me the Jim Mahfood print as well as the comic!
(Poster by Jim Mahfood!)
Watch this space.
You can find out more about David F Walker’s projects by following him on Twitter @DavidWalker1201 or heading to his website at https://davidfwalker.com/solid-comix/
You can find some more art from Brett Weldele at https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/brettweldele or follow him on Twitter @BrettWeldele
Many thanks for reading.
No comments:
Post a Comment