Review by: Dale Carothers
Rak, Alessandro. A Skeleton Story #1. Layout/colouring, Andrea Scoppetta. GG Studios, June 2010. US$2.99. ISBN 978-88-6547-002-2.
If I could only choose one word to review this book, it would be ‘charming’. Italian creators Alessandro Rak and Andrea Scoppetta have given us a warm and subtly comic tale about life in the afterlife.
The story opens with bank robbers Will and Silver Frog fleeing the police along a dark, twisted highway, a bag full of cash in the backseat and a hostage in the front, when a black cat darts out in front of their car. Will swerves, sending the car careening down a hill and into the water. As the car sinks, Silver Frog grabs the hostage and swims for the surface, but Will doesn’t escape. He’s smacked his head against the windshield, killing him instantly. After the car settles on the bottom, amidst sunken ships and coral reefs, Will gets out of the car, now a skeleton, and spies the black cat walking along a railroad track at the bottom of the sea. He follows it to a train, where he meets his late mother. She warns him that he has one more chance to get his life back on track. The background fades and the panel edges go all wonky….
Rak and Scoppetta’s storytelling style is seamless. Each panel flows into the next with such grace and ease that I was propelled along to the end of the story far-too-quickly. As soon as I finished A Skeleton Story, I wanted to read it again. The colours are so rich and inviting – all muted blues and browns and greens – that even though I was pretty sure it was coloured using a computer, I couldn’t help thinking that it was painted, lovingly, with watercolours. Their design and figure work reminded me of Dave Copper or Patrick McEown. Every single character is distinct (one of the advantages of a cartoony art style) in both form and dialogue.
…Will wakes up in his office in the land of the dead. He seems to be a private investigator. It’s never explicitly expressed, but I’m making that assumption. He has a suit, a fedora, a gun, and the requisite glass of whiskey on his desk. A gust of wind blows the window open and rustles the papers off of his desk. As he goes to shut the window, he sees the black cat again. He follows it and we learn, through the conversations of several characters who are introduced over the next several pages, that life is intruding on the land of the dead. Spring is coming and revolution is in the air. Silver Frog, Will’s old partner, is being released from prison. He’s dead now, too, but we don’t know why or how, yet. He’s greeted at the prison gates by a band of musicians. They sing a song about how they plan to be the architects of the coming revolution. The same cop who chased Will and Silver Frog at the beginning stops by to tell Silver Frog that he’s being watched.
It was over way too soon. Such is the problem with buying comics issue by issue. I rarely have the patience to wait for the collected editions to come out.
Rak and Scoppetta hooked me by introducing me to a fascinating world filled with interesting characters and then left me wanting more. They raised lots of questions that I need to have answered. What is going on with that cat and what is it trying to get Will to do? How did Silver Frog die and then become the leader of the coming revolution? How does the cop go from the land of the living to the land of the dead? What’s so bad about the current government in the land of the dead? It seems almost idyllic to me. How will the tide of life, sweeping through the cobblestone streets, change everything?
When I find the rest of the story, I won’t hesitate to buy it.
Even though I’ve only read one issue, I’m convinced that A Skeleton Story would make a wonderful animated feature. Or even better, a Muppet movie. I think Jason Segel plans to take over Jim Henson’s workshop. Maybe I’ll give him a call.
Rating: 8 out of 10
Bio: Dale Carothers: Reading comics and eating cake for the betterment of mankind.