Radiant Comics

I’m back from the comic shop this week and I got ten new comics:

Clone – 4

Bloodshot – 8

The Black Beetle – 1

The Walking Dead – 107

The Walking Dead: The Governor Special – 1

Archer $ Armstrong – 6 & 7

Fatale – 12

Hoax Hunters – 7

Manhattan Projects – 9

Strorm Dogs – 3

And now for a review of something I’ve read recently.

”Billy the Kid’s Old Timey Oddities and the Orm of Loch Ness” Issues 1-4 by Eric Powell and Kyle Hotz

I picked up the first issue of this series on a whim when it first came out and stuck around for all four issues of the mini-series. It’s written by Eric Powell who writes and draws “The Goon” and since I like that comic I figured there would be a solid chance I’s enjoy this one too. The artist, Kyle Hotz, I was unfamiliar with.

The story stars Billy the Kid so it’s set in the time of the old west but it takes place in Scotland near Loch Ness as the title suggests. Billy is traveling with a group of freaks who perform in a freak show but they stop at the wrong castle to rest for the night. Turns out that the nobleman who owns the castle is a monster. A cross between Dracula and the Loch Ness monster type monster.

There really wasn’t much to the story but it was fun. Monsters, freaks, torch bearing townsfolk, and a crazy old preacher. What more does a Billy the Kid versus the Loch Ness monster need? The art was pretty good. It’s sort of a cartoonish Kelly Jones horror style which means there is some Bernie Wrightson thrown in as well. There are a lot of long limbs and big noses. It’s expressive. My one complaint about the art is that the fight scenes in the final issue were a bit confusing. The storytelling wasn’t as clear as in the rest of the book.

Overall “Billy the Kid…” was a solid entertaining story and a nice change of pace from the usual comic book. Give it a read if that’s your kind of thing.