I have never really cared for Brian Azzarello. I can't say that I've read all of his work, but I suffered through the first 12 issues of 100 Bullets and could not force myself to read any further. I even tried reading the first few issues of Loveless when it first started coming out a few years ago (believe it or not I had a subscription). I liked the first 6 issues, illustrated by Marcelo Frusin (Hellblazer), but when the artist switched to Danijel Zezelj (Desolation Jones #7-8), I was turned off. I fell off with the series and would wonder, occasionally, if it would be worth picking back up.It is.
I have come to LOVE Zezelj's work on Loveless, and I have come to love Azzarello's writing (at least on this series, but I am going to try 100 Bullets again very soon). Zezelj's work is raw and gritty and his backgrounds are elegant but minimal (there is a lot not to look at, if that makes sense). I tore these two volumes apart.
I don't generally go for Westerns (and would defer any questions about good Western comic series' to my friend, Christian); I don't really care much for the Civil War (though I am, believe it or not, distantly related to Abe Lincoln!); but this story is really raw. You love and hate everybody here and you keep turning pages to figure out who is really screwing who. The book is set in the years following the Civil War, when blacks are "free" but still enslaved by a nation of bigots, and when the South has yet to put down their arms.
The setting is volatile and the morals are ambiguous. This book is a gem!
4 (out of 5) homeless guys,
-sandy
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