‘Eve Stranger’ - issue 1.
Written by David Barnett.
Art by Philip Bond.
Colours by Eva de la Cruz.
Letters by Jane Heir.
Assistant Editor Megan Brown.
Editor Shelly Bond.
Published by Black Crown/IDW.
The Story -‘You have unlimited funds, a jet-set lifestyle, and extraordinary abilities. And your bloodstream is filled with nanobombs. The contents of a syringe will deactivate them for a week and also wipe your memory. So what happens when you develop a sneaking suspicion that you're actually working for the bad guys? EVE STRANGER, amnesiac-for-hire.’
The Review - This book is jam-packed with stories. There’s the main Eve Stranger opener and then a back up, which I’ll deal with below, and tasters of other titles from Black Crown including the excellent Punks Not Dead.
The main story deals with Eve Stranger who may or may not be the hero of this story. She’s a mystery to us and herself at the start and the narrative thread is unraveled slowly before us and a little bit before her. You are nowhere near solving the whole game of Scrabble by the end of the first issue but you do get to piece a few things together. You also begin to warm to this woman, she’s pretty fucking cool.
Eve is deadly and not only handles a gun like a pro but also can Kung fu kick your ass. She wakes in a room with the aforementioned gun, a pile of cash, a passport, notebooks and a cuddly toy called Huldu who may or may not be a gift from her father when she was a child. There’s also a bird tattoo on her right shoulder that just might be a magpie in flight.
The mystery deepens.....
What is Eve or ‘E.V.E.’?
Is she human or just a highly trained assassin who also looks like she hangs out in Camden Market by way of Neo Tokyo?
Is she really that force for good we hope she is?
Who are the puppet masters behind this motorbike riding action woman?
And....Why are people trying to kill her?
(I also shop at the ‘fancy Pants’ Boutique!)
Philip Bond is an artist that I haven’t seen on a log form series for in a while. But he hasn’t lost a step in being the king of cool I remember. He leads the way in this book with page after page of slick clean lined chaos. His panels are full with visual Easter Eggs and fully formed characters with individual and often lived in boat races! Eve’s Cyber Mod vibes rub up against caricatured faces of cops, villains, gangsters and more.
The writing by Mr Barnett gives us just what we need in the mystery and adds in some great action and personal moments that make this a genuine pleasure to read. The writing also takes the form of a narration sitting above the action and keeping just ahead of the plot, it’s a nice tweak that keeps you guessing.
Cracking stuff and highly recommended.
‘Eve Stranger: Ace Reporter.’
Written by David Barnett.
Art by Liz Prince.
Colours by Eva de la Cruz.
This is the much shorter back-up story. I’m really not sure about this one. It’s a completely different deal than the main strip. From what I can see it’s aiming at the cutesy/autobio indie comics scene. There’s some stuff about Eve coming from Iceland, a cat in a tree and some firemen who takes their shirts off and run around.
I found it a change of pace that was too jarring from a story that I absolutely dug previously. To be fair I’m not a fan of this sort of art and I found it bordering on the (purposely?) amateur looking giving it the effect that it was drawn by a kid.
It may be part of the brainwash/false memory storyline from earlier but I’ll be honest and say that I tried to read it all but found it something of a chore. Had I not been writing a review I would probably have swerved it.
Find out more about this book by heading over to http://www.blackcrown.pub/
Many thanks for reading.
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