STRAY BULLETS : SUNSHINE AND ROSES #1
Story & Art: David Lapham
Publisher: Image Comics/El Capitan
It’s no secret that Stray Bullets is one of the best comics being published today, possibly ever. David Lapham’s latest Sunshine and Roses remedies the missing gratuitous violence of Killers at the cost of diverting from that arc’s engaging plot. However, this is the most brutal and meaty the Stray Bullets series has been in awhile, and that speaks volumes for what you’ll find in these pages.
Linear storytelling has never been Lapham’s aim for the series. It’s allowed him to take chances and experiment with the world he’s created. David Lapham has done some traumatic breaking of characters, jumped time periods on a whim, and killed his cast in ways that haven’t even been invented yet. Stray Bullets Sunshine and Roses #1 follows the story of Kretchmeyer, a suave would be gangster trying to get in the game. He begins a romance with a feisty east coast woman named Beth. Unknowingly, the secrets of their lives begin to intertwine and unravel in a crime/love story that hasn’t been told this well since True Romance.
Black and white comics might not be for everyone but if they’re done right you hardly notice the lack of color. Laphan does it right. His art has a way of simplifying the complexity of the narrative down to raw emotion. It’s a treat to ride this tense roller coaster of lust and violence because each page is more striking than the one before it.
If you’ve never read Stray Bullets, the beauty of the series is its never closed nature. Almost every issue is a self contained story. Whether you start with the original number one or this latest Sunshine and Roses arc you’ll never feel as though you’re in a story that’s already years in unfolding. For long time Stray Bullets fans… rejoice! It’s back and it’s just as good as ever!
Dave currently playing :Grimm Fandango, currently eating: cereal, currently complaining about: fat free milk @bouncingsoul217
