Killer Groove #2 (featured image) Reviews 

“Killer Groove” #2

By | June 28th, 2019
Posted in Reviews | % Comments

The dialogue throughout “Killer Groove” #2 is funny and naturalistic, revealing great insights into the main characters and their relationships. This is a noir that feels contemporary and cool, but for some readers it might feel a bit light plot and pulp-inspired action. (Warning: may contain minor spoilers.)

Cover by Triona Farrell
Written by Ollie Masters
Illustrated by Eoin Marron
Colored by Jordie Bellaire
Lettered by Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou

The music plays on and the killing continues as we delve further into this pulpy LA tale of musicians, contract killers and PIs. Iggy teaches Jonny the finer points of his violent new occupation, while Jackie and Raúl reconnect investigating Lucy’s missing father.

“Killer Groove” #1 did a great job of quickly and efficiently setting the story in motion. In the span of the first nine pages, we saw Uncle Raul pull off a quick-thinking escape from a pair of machete wielding thugs in ski masks and Jonny’s inadvertent murder of some random guy in an alley. Along the way we also got the co-creators’ unique take on the noirish setting: the seamy underbelly of post-Flower Power L.A. in the 1970s. “Was a dark scene, man,” says Jonny. “Then the Beatles broke up and fuck, it just felt like the whole thing ended.”

Sure, there were some elements that felt a bit formulaic, but in the end it was a well executed, satisfying debut. There was an urgency driving the story, along with a certain sense of unpredictability. After just one issue, it already felt like we’d hit a major turning point. At any given moment, things could veer off sharply into any one of several intriguing directions.

Although I wouldn’t say “Killer Groove” #2 squanders the first issue’s momentum, things slow down quite a bit as this issue takes a much different tack than the one that launched the series. As a result, while this issue clearly adds depth and nuance to the main characters, the story itself only inches forward. Thankfully, there’s no tedious info dump or overwrought backstory, but if you come to this issue expecting things to keep rolling at a fast, unpredictable clip, you may feel a bit underwhelmed. There’s still bloodshed, of course, but the bulk of the issue explores the four characters and two key relationships at the center of it all.

First up is Jonny and Iggy. They’ve only recently met, but the dynamic between them is already well established. Essentially, it’s one part mentor-mentee and one part “buddy movie” — two characters thrown together through fate and circumstance with opposing worldviews and contrasting personalities. Jonny, on the one hand, is the consummate idealist, a hack singer-songwriter still struggling to break into the biz despite a career that plateaued long before it began. Iggy, on the other hand, is younger and better looking, good at what he does and purely focused on getting the job done. He’s a literal hired gun with seemingly no other aspirations. At least none that he cares to share.

Illustrator Eoin Marron’s loose but confident pencils and colorist Jordie Bellaire’s sun-scorched, dingy palette breathe a lot of life and personality into these two, but it’s Ollie Masters’s dialogue that raises things to new heights. In a scene that reads like an homage to Quentin Tarantino’s infamous Royale with Cheese bit from “Pulp Fiction,” Iggy riffs on Marco Polo, pasta and the British bands who stole rock ‘n’ roll from black American blues musicians. In the midst of this three scene, multi-page sequence that flows seamlessly from Iggy and Jonny’s brutal encounter with a record bootlegger to a booth at Chinese restaurant to Jonny laying down a demo track on a portable cassette player, Masters succinctly states the central theme of the series. “You know, I think you could go far doing what I do,” says Iggy, the contract killer, “but don’t let it get in the way of your music.” His protégé Jonny responds, “Why’s it got to be one or the other?” Without a doubt they make a compelling duo to build n interesting story around.

In many ways, however, the book’s secondary relationship, between Raul and Jackie, is even more intriguing and full of possibilities. Here, it’s another twist on the age-old bond between master and apprentice. In this case, it just happens to be between an aging, Afro-Cuban gay man from Miami and his younger niece Jackie, a disgraced former cop who now works as a P.I. Bellaire accents this duo with bright reds and rich yellows, adding a layer of style and panache to Marron’s efficient, expressive illustrations that tell the story through well paced close-ups and medium shots.

Ultimately, how you read and respond to this issue will almost certainly come down to your personal preferences and what you tend to look for in a great comic. If you’re the kind of reader who loves digging into the nuts and bolts of human psychology and what makes characters tick, you’re going to love Masters’s writing. It’s solid and well crafted. But if you’re looking for pulse-pounding action and surprises at every turn, more in the vein of classic, pulp-inspired crime fiction, it may fall a little flat. To appropriate Jonny’s comments, why do we have to choose? Why’s it need to be one way or the other? Why can’t we have both?

Final Verdict: 7.7  – Ollie Masters script does a great job of digging deep into the characters and their relationships while avoiding info dump and tedious backstory. At the same, the almost palpable sense of urgency in the first issue has all but evaporated.


John Schaidler

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