For the discerning reader, Eric Powell should be a huge name in your comic booking life. His title The Goon for Dark Horse Comics has long been one of the best on the market, bringing hilarity, horror and tragedy to readers every issue in one beautifully crafted package. Whenever he develops extensions of that series it’s a treat, and today brings a new mini-series that looks at peripheral character Buzzard. Little was known to me about the series besides the fact that Powell was running the show, but that is enough for me to pick it up.
Does it live up to Powell’s previous work? Find out after the jump.
Buzzard #1
Written and Illustrated by: Eric Powell
Back up Written by: Eric Powell
Back up Illustrated by: Kyle Hotz
When looking at the characters in The Goon that could conceivably have a mini-series told about them, Buzzard may have been one of the more difficult ones to merit one. Sure, he’s a great character, but his origin had already been told and his arc had played out (albeit in an open-ended one). Still, leave it to Eric Powell to take this character and breathe a second (third?) life into him, giving us a comic that is haunting and sparse while also still tying into the core concept of the character.
The story opens with a page of just Buzzard walking away from the camera into what looks like a haunted forest, with the story quickly turning from one of a character lost and without a real purpose to one unstuck in time with the potential of finding a true destiny in the big sleep. Powell posits Buzzard in different eras to look at a range of people, all in some way tied to death. When he finally lands in a place where he can make a difference, quickly dispatching the mindless killers known as “The Mangled Ones”, Buzzard discovers that he can help these people by assassinating the god that lords over them or possibly earn his own passing (Buzzard theorizes that if only death can kill a god, only god can kill death).
The whole thing is told in a beautifully spare fashion, keeping most of the dialogue internal and building tension organically as Buzzard looks for anything that may earn him his goal: finality. Turning Buzzard into an era hopping harbinger of death is a remarkably clever turn from Powell, and something I really enjoyed seeing put into action. This shell of a man transitions from being an aimless vagabond in the timestream to one with a purpose finally, and it all works remarkably well.
Powell the artist is just…he’s just superb in this issue. The use of negative space on some of the pages makes them resoundingly beautiful, namely page seven. As we’re given the first inkling of the plot (“I was stepping through what I reckoned to be different places. Different times, alien to my own.”) in hand inked, blue font that matches precisely with the hue that graces every page, Buzzard stares out at a window in time of a castle in the distance. All of this is rendered in pencil, ink and watercolor, and is surrounded with a pure white that contrasts and escalates the power of the page to a wonderful new level.
If you like Powell and the style he’s been using since around The Goon: Chinatown, then you’ll love this issue and its art.
On top of all of this, we get a back up story from Powell and Kyle Hotz (The Hood) titled “Billy the Kid’s Old Timey Oddities & The Pit of Horrors”. This story isn’t connected at all but finds Billy the Kid teaming up with a few occult experts as they find themselves in the midst of mass murder and potential witchcraft. The whole thing reads like Rick Remender’s entry into Frank Frazetta’s Creatures mini that found Teddy Roosevelt Hellboy-ing it up, and is quite the hoot. Hotz gives us his standard Capullo-esque art, but it fits fairly well for what it is, it just happens to have the misfortune of being the second act behind a true great.
Between the two stories, this is a highly worthwhile package for $3.50. 26 pages of pure goodness of story, albeit one that finds more value to those who are longtime Goon fans. Don’t miss this today when you’re out at the shop folks, and if you do, make sure to at least pick up some trades of The Goon.
Final Verdict: 9.2 – Buy
