Night Moves 2 Featured Reviews 

“Night Moves” #2

By | December 21st, 2018
Posted in Reviews | % Comments

“Night Moves” #2 continues the book’s fast pace, with some nice pops to help lift a heavy narrative load.

Cover by Chris Burnham
Written by V.J. Written by V.J. Boyd & Justin Boyd
Illustrated by Clay McCormack
Colored by Mike Spicer
Lettered by Shawn DePasquale

A horrific encounter with a possessed gangster changes everything for Chris and Alexis, leaving them both looking for revenge.

Dundee & crew are in a bit of trouble in “Night Moves” #2. They’ve gone after the big bad, things got weird, things got violent and a year on, things are still … well. Weird.

I’ve dinged a lot of recent noir and crime comics for either reaching too hard or not hard enough for mood, but “Night Moves” does well in this aspect. I enjoy that the Boyds are going full tilt with the demonic angle, bolstered by some neat character design and artistic flair from McCormack. Dundee and the others absorb this information with a refreshing lack of complete shock – they are in Vegas, after all – and a candor that makes them very human. The Trump analogue is a little on the nose, but we live in an on-the-nose culture, so it mostly works.

The problem with this comic, like other recent examples of its genre, is that it tries to pack way too much information into single issues. We have a large rotating cast that’s hard to crack, largely because they’re fighting for time on the page amongst themselves, and there’s an issue with sequential action cutting too sharply between panels on a few pages. The time jump between the first and second issue is difficult to absorb, as it’s hard enough to track the current cast without having to identify them in new roles, new jobs and new, uh, outlooks on life. We’re also already experiencing the story in flashback. Additionally, McCormack’s facial shading and detailing is on the heavy side and relatively uniform between genders and ages, which makes for little variation to help me land on any one character’s experience of everything that’s going on.

A strong POV is key to building a good noir or crime set-piece, and Dundee can’t quite carry it so far because he’s buried under too many other characters. Setting your comic in Vegas also precludes subtlety in a lot of ways, and the book can’t quite balance its need to shock with a surprising lack of drama. A lot of this comes down to the point I made above: too much going on. As a reader, I have the luxury of cherry-picking things that could come out to help smooth the edges, but the easiest way the Boyds could remedy this is by splitting the issue in half. Issue #2 could easily tackle the demonic confrontation as its climax and be successful, with the time jump leading off issue #3. As it is, I feel like I’m reading two short issues jammed together. I’m disappointed that the book didn’t take its time with its occult subject matter – especially considering how it’s billed. The Boyds have a good concept here and could’ve leaned into it even more by hitting the brakes a bit.

I appreciate the washy desert daylight tones and Spicer’s judicious use of shadow. The choice of a more muted palette for an organized-crime-cum-demon-possession story set in Las Vegas is an interesting one, and it mostly works. The occasional inky background with color peeking through is a nice accent tactic and helps unify a few more complex pages. I also like the tonal differentiation between Dundee’s storytelling scenes and the story itself. Everything’s a bit duller and washed out in the now, as it should be.

DePasquale’s lettering is interesting, but ultimately doesn’t suit the book. The typeface looks a bit antiquated for the time period and the subject matter. It wouldn’t be so obtrusive if there wasn’t so much dialogue to plow through, so the choice doesn’t entirely work. There’s very little padding in the balloons, which is a smart choice. However, that choice, like the typeface itself, feels driven by the need to jam as much text onto the page as possible. If there was less to reckon with overall, it’d be easier to digest, but I often find myself chewing through the dialogue before absorbing the art.

Overall, there’s just too much going on. I say this a lot, but it’s a common problem in the medium, and one that’s very easy to stumble into. I give the Boyds and team credit for going for something a little wackier than your typical crime thriller, but it doesn’t really land well in the hubbub. It’s possible to narrow your storytelling scope without sacrificing drama, and this book would do well to scale back on the narrative checklist.

Final Verdict: 6.5 – “Night Moves” #2 delivers some nice shock value but, unfortunately, doesn’t stop to let its hard work sink in.


Christa Harader

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