Stuntmen and women are an integral part of the entertainment machine. They risk life and limb to perform all the stunts ranging from small and trivial to completely terrifying in order to make movies look good and to keep the insurance premiums for the A list celebrities to a fairly appropriate level. They deserve our attention and respect, and from what I’ve been told there’s a movement to get a “Best Stunt” category added to the Oscars, which is something that should have happened a long time ago.
In the meantime, here’s a comic centered around the world of stunt people and the part of Hollywood that the cameras don’t really show.
Written by Kyle StarksCover by: Chris Schweitzer
Illustrated and Lettered by Chris Schweitzer
Colored by Liz Tice SchweitzerThe world’s most unlikable action star has been found dead, and his previous TV sidekicks are looking to solve the mystery. But how can you catch a murderer when almost everyone hated the victim? Now these sidekicks are going to learn what it means to be the stars of the show…that is, if any of them survive the STUNTMAN WAR!
“The Six Sidekicks of Trigger Keaton” #1 wastes no time in establishing how much of a jerk the titular character really is. Trigger Keaton is the kind of Hollywood action star that you would find in a 1980’s B-movie or television show (think a thinly veiled homage to David Hasselhoff and Chuck Norris) and he’s the kind of person who thinks he’s way more important than he really is. When he’s not drinking, smoking, and engaged with women of the night, he spends all his time treating his co stars and co workers like dirt and legitimately hurting people for little to no reason. Nobody likes him, but nobody says anything because he’s the star.
Unfortunately, Trigger Keaton is discovered dead in his home and the cops have little no reason to show a washed up ex-action star any attention, especially since it looks like it’s an apparent suicide. It’s up to six of Keaton’s previous sidekicks to get to the bottom of his death and possibly bring the perpetrators to justice.
Kyle Starks provides the script for “The Six Sidekicks of Trigger Keaton” #1 and he does an amazing job of creating a cast of characters so divorced from reality and lost in their own egos and personal ambitions it’s hilarious and kind of sad at the same time. Starks understands how to use the death of Trigger Keaton as a way to structure the story and does a great job of showing how even a corpse can radiate bad vibes and unpleasant feelings like a cloud of poison gas. It’s fitting that most of the comic revolves around other people’s perception of the dead action star and the procedural aspects of the murder investigation are almost secondary. This is a comic with a plot that doesn’t revolve around themes and props, it revolves around people and their egos.
The unpleasant reality of Hollywood also applies to the living characters in “The Six Sidekicks of Trigger Keaton” #1 and while Starks doesn’t give each of the characters an equal amount of screentime, he does do a very good job of showing how each of the characters is lost in their own quest for fame and glory and how their own egos, personal faults, and broken dreams play off each other and clash with themselves and the people around them. What’s really impressive is how Starks manages to juggle the introduction of six separate characters in such a short space of time and uses them to move the plot forwards. It’s a first issue with a long checklist of things to do, and it manages to pull it all off very well.
The artwork for “The Six Sidekicks of Trigger Keaton” #1 is provided by Chris Schweizer, which is an interesting choice. Schweizer has a very simple and clean art style that kind looks like a slightly messier and more abstract take on Herge’s Linge Claire style with a dash of modern zine comics thrown in. While at first glance it would appear that Schweizer’s style would be more suited on a book for younger readers, he uses the style to great effect when showing the over the top emotions that each of the characters are feeling which just adds to the idea that everyone in this town is just performing for the cameras.
Continued belowAnother thing Schweizer does very well in “The Six Sidekicks of Trigger Keaton” #1 is to manage the panel count of each page and not make the book like a jumbled mess. There are several pages with more than ten panels on a page and Schweizer shows a clear sense of visual storytelling by preventing each scene or moment from crashing into each other by keeping them contained to their own page. The book is a very good lesson on macro level storytelling, and how to use the mechanics of the comic book page and panel to make a better comic on top of really interesting art.
“The Six Sidekicks of Trigger Keaton” #1 is a classic Hollywood murder mystery that is less interested in the mechanics of how the murder was committed and who did the crime and more interested in exploring the lives and faults of six deeply flawed, deeply hurt, and incredibly egotistical people working in the movie industry and the incredibly unlikeable jerk that brought them all together in the first place.
Final Verdict: 8.9- A great introduction to a murder mystery that uses the tropes of a Hollywood whodunnit to deliver an interesting character study on the egos that work in Hollywood.
