“I Can Sell You A Body” #2 continues the misadventures of Denny, Henrietta and a few good – I mean, dead – men. Warning: spoilers ahead.
Written & Lettered by Ryan FerrierCover by George Kambadais
Illustrated by George Kambadais Desperate Denny definitely doubles down on doing demonic deeds to distract the dastardly deviants demanding his death. During this, detectives dare to dive deep into Denny’s divine delinquencies. Oh, Denny.
“I Can Sell You A Body” #2 is the second installment in this irreverent, grisly and well-crafted mini from Ferrier and Kambadais. Denny’s got himself a girl, a plan and a direct line to the dead Don himself – except Henrietta’s life choices are about as good as Denny’s, he might’ve started an Angeleno zombie apocalypse and the Don wants nothing to do with the land of the living anymore.
Make sense? Oddly, yes.
Ferrier and Kambadais pull off something that’s very hard to do in “I Can Sell You A Body” by dropping us into Denny’s life mid-stream and establishing a very strange reality that walks the line between comedy and horror. In the classic sense, absurdity fits here, because there’s nothing particularly logical or appropriate about a seedy, washed-up psychic medium who owes money to the mob and whose reverse exorcisms are accidentally raising the undead. It’s very easy to go whole hog on the comedy in a book like this and make everything too silly to matter, but Ferrier and Kambadais construct a pretty complex plot that flows naturally in the midst of incredibly Italian goings-on and Denny’s despicable antics. There’s a mystery that hooks us and keeps us reading even as we’re chuckling on the page turn at the Exorcist enthusiasm or the dinner-time massacre. Denny’s dialogue is irreverent and pitch-perfect, and he possesses a certain self-awareness that makes him not endearing, per se, but believable as an anti-hero. Man bun and all.
Kambadais’s visuals are what really put “I Can Sell You A Body” over the top, because without the attention to cartooning, space or comedic physicality the book couldn’t get off the ground. Denny’s lanky hipster physique is a perfect expression of his bent personality, and the zombie invasion of the dinner later in the book is ballet-beautiful and laugh-out-loud funny. There are all sorts of little touches that make this book fun to look at, like Kambadais’s use of shadowed faces and silhouettes or the particular design of the spirit world. Panel structure is pretty regular, and Kambadais wisely keeps the experimentation textual rather than structural. It’s important to have a visual touchstone in a book like this for the comedy to hit properly, and Kambadais situates Denny’s whole deal in a recognizable version of L.A. – at least in the corporeal world.
The color palette smashes nightlife neon together with noir tropes, and Kambadais’s line supports that slick quality. Swaths of black are placed well and hem Denny in almost constantly in evening scenes. During the day it’s the cityscape exteriors and interiors around him – the food courts, the offices, the morgue – that curtail his spirit and his ambitions. The effect is subtle, but Kambadais often draws Denny in full interior spaces and creates an undercurrent of stress and tension, as if Denny doesn’t fit anywhere at all. Even the scene with Henrietta in this issue features noir horizontal slats on her bed frame and a moody pink, blue and purple palette. The moment is tender but the colors suggest an uneasy calm, and the antiseptic blue of the hospital corridor that follows, punctuated only by Henrietta’s cheerful yellow jacket, feels more in line with Denny’s reality than this stolen happiness.
Ferrier’s lettering suits the book well, and there’s not too much extra flair here to detract from Kambadais’s clean visuals and the story itself. Ferrier chooses a straight-ahead font with just a hint of unevenness that comes through in the Es, Ys and Os – blink and you’ll miss it, but it adds enough wiggle to support the unsteadiness of the whole caper. Most of the sound effects are economical outside of the zombie splash, which features a visceral “BLURCH” and a good “BANG!” overlapped several times to indicate rapid handgun fire. The ghosts have a mellow blue aura around their balloons to differentiate the dialogue, and there’s no narration to interrupt Denny’s blabbering.
“I Can Sell You A Body” is a fun book, full stop. The comic achieves this weird level of joy because it’s put together with style and substance, and it doesn’t waver from its dedication to its premise. There’s not an ounce of uncertainty here, and Ferrier and Kambadais’s teamwork create a cohesive visual experience with good cartooning and a keen sense of humor. Further, there’s a hint of heart as well, and not just in Denny and Henrietta’s romance to date. Death, losing loved ones, memory and regret are all present here, and though they’re explored with tongue planted firmly in cheek, the exploration’s more sophisticated than we might think at first. We’re just more likely to turn the page and see Denny trying to scam his way into some free noodles at a food court than a tender expository treatise on loss and longing.
Final Verdict: 9.0 – “I Can Sell You A Body” #2 delights with sheer weirdness, humor and excellent craft.
