Next week AfterShock Comics will release Campisi: The Dragon Incident #3, the penultimate issue of the fantasy crime comedy from writer James Patrick, artist Marco Locati, and letterer Rachel Deering. Today The Beat is pleased to offer an exclusive preview of the issue, which finds mob fixer Sonny Campisi having maybe bitten off more than he can chew.
Here’s how AfterShock describes Campisi: The Dragon Incident #3:
Sonny Campisi is learning that dragons are a pain in the keister. You can’t fool them, you can’t bribe them, and you can’t kick their teeth in. On top of that, he has to stop some of the neighborhood idiots from trying to take care of the problem themselves with their beer muscles. And then Sonny’s mob boss, Mr. Rossi, is growing very impatient with this dragon situation and is about to make a very poor decision. And if Sonny can’t manage every single problem, the neighborhood he grew up in will be burned to the ground.
Back when the series was initially announced, Patrick described how his own Ohio upbringing influenced the creation of the book:
Well, I love the Godfather and Goodfellas. The “mob” or “gangster” movie is iconic. But I also was an Italian growing up in Youngstown, Ohio, which for a long time was a notorious organized-crime area. One of the last in the country while other places and that type of life went away. But not Youngstown. It has a long history of infamous gambling spots and car bombings and that life extended into the decade of my childhood. I was never in it, but it was around me. A lot of people had weekly betting slips, there were card games – and so you had this part of that world which trickled into everyday life there. Which was just normal. And that’s what I find fascinating – not just the “hits” in movies like Godfather – but how does that mix with where you live in a way that becomes normal but isn’t normal everywhere else. That’s why in this book I didn’t want Sonny Campisi to be some amazing hitman, I wanted him to be the guy who comes to visit you when you’re late paying your bets or if your music is too loud and you’re waking the neighbors.
Interestingly, no mention of dragons where he was growing up. Maybe he just forgot about them.
Check out the exclusive four-page preview of Campisi: The Dragon Incident #3 below. The issue arrives in stores and digitally next Wednesday, October 27th.