A pacy one-shot that could have been pulled from the pages of a 40’s pulp magazine. Ulloa and Varese attempt to channel a classic story style in their latest release.
Written by John Ulloa
Pencils by Jose VareseThe Gun (part one) is the story of a struggling writer, who, at the end of his rope, gets a new lease on life when he purchases a gun at a pawnshop. His life is suddenly worth living again’ until it’s not.
Tales of mystery have been the staple of the comic book medium pretty much since its inception. Stories that laid intrigue on thick and dragged the reader from page to page evolved naturally from the pages of 30’s Noir thrillers and found a new home in monthly comics. And it’s clear even before you read the first page that “The Gun” draws heavily from these classic stories. The cover is an anachronistic nod to the old-fashioned “Tales of Suspense” (even down to the subtitle) and the archetypal characters featured on the front cover are instantly recognisable.
The story, as it goes, is a pretty straightforward monkey’s paw/cursed object narrative. The protagonist, a struggling writer called John Ullman, finds himself at his wits end when his latest book is turned down by his publisher. Running behind on his rent and feeling like his life has no purpose, he heads to a seedy pawnshop to buy a gun and end it all. But, when the mysterious shop owner offers him a weapon with a suspicious history, John’s life takes a turn he never would have expected.
“The Gun” doesn’t bring too much new to the table as far as story is concerned. While I was hoping to see a fresh and potentially post-modern take on this well-worn narrative, Ulloa sticks reasonably close to what is recognisable as the standard formula for this story. John is a prototypical monologuing moper, who is so hyper aware of his own faults and flaws that it’s difficult to feel too sorry for him. The sinister pawn-shop owner gives him more than fair warning when he offers him the gun but, as is always the case in stories like this, John goes out of his way to ignore anything that might deter him. His descent into another life is well paced and flows relatively professionally, but his final comeuppance, when it arrives, feels a little O, Henry-esque: too convenient to be believable.
That being said, Ulloa’s overall idea is reasonably solid. He’s working from a template, but it’s one that has served countless stories well in the past. The real shame as far as his scripting is concerned is his over reliance on monologue to do the job of the illustrations. There are several text-laden scenes in this issue where the narrative boxes serve only to tell the reader what’s happening directly in the panel. This constant narration actually ends up detracting from what is, in my opinion, the stronger element of the book: the artwork.
Varese’s style is hugely reminiscent of old-school Noir comic books and his understated facial expressions manage to convey a surprising amount of emotion without straying too far into the realms of melodrama. What’s more, his subtle transformation of John from no-hope author to gun toting desperado utilises changes in posture, facial expression, and shadowing to build a much more nuanced desperation than the script necessarily suggests.
As so often happens in a comic with a lot of monologuing, there are a number of montage sequences in the first issue of “The Gun”. Varese portrays these time-jumps nicely, enabling the story to switch pace from page to page without ever feeling like it’s jarring too heavily. Varese also plays around with panelling quite a lot during this issue which does, at times, get a little difficult to follow. However he displays a real knowledge of the most important elements of a page and, especially during the more high-octane final act, it’s his execution of movement that gives the book a satisfactory conclusion.
There are moments during this issue where a larger narrative is hinted at, specifically with the back-story of the gun itself and the possible influence it may hold over its users. As a one-shot, I feel as though “The Gun” doesn’t offer much beyond the source material it is pulling from but, as part of a larger work, it may be laying the foundations for a more interesting story. I’m guessing that, by the fourth issue, it’ll be obvious that it’s the gun, not John, or any other human being, that is the series’ true protagonist. That’s the concept I was initially looking for in this series and I think it was the lack of exploration in that theme that really put me off.
Final Verdict: 5.8 – A reasonable addition to a classic school of comics, but lacking anything truly original to get excited about.
