Stray Bullets

Besides my initital reaction after reading "Stray Bullets" and being greatly disturbed, it's a really unique work that utilizes a lot of familiar elements of the "film noir/crime" genre but keeps going in a direction you never see coming.

I think much more than Billi 99, Stray Bullets reminded me of Frank Miller's Sin City books. In fact, the first story with the two guys and the dead body and all the increasing number of dead bodies was a bit reminiscent of "The Big Fat Kill" Sin City story with Dwight, which was the 2nd story in the film adaptation with Clive Owen playing Dwight. But I think one of the key differences is that Frank Miller draws his characters in a more abstract cartoony style, so although the characters are clearly human beings, there's very few people on earth who look as deformed as the Sin City characters. As opposed to Lapham's character designs, which are really photo-realistically draw, which gives more attachment to the action in the book, and thus most likely seemed more unsettling to me than something like Sin City.

Visually, I was impressed with how Lapham was able to make something that seemed simple on the surface actually complex. A majority of the stories are 6 basic panel grids, but there's a lot going on in each and every one. Like on the 5th story with Orson, from p.144-149, there's a lot of dialogue coming from his parents, but no where in the story do we ever seem them. The closest we come is a one panel kiss silhouette from his mother on p.146. It just reminded me a little of the shark from Jaws.

I also liked how Lapham varied the speech bubbles depending on the context and situation. For instance, whenever someone was intoxicated the bubble would be very bumpy and the lettering more spaced between each other and looked like it was scribbled. It reminded me a bit of Jeff Smith's lettering in Bone in that respect, especially for some characters like the Lord of the Locusts or the Rat Creatures. And of course the captions and titles had a type print, almost like a police or criminal record, which of course is very fitting for the mood.

Story-wise, I found it a little jarring at first to be plunged into a world that was basically ours, but the dark underbelly of it. It was kinda like a Quentin Tarantino movie, because a lot of these people are not typically seen in "normal society" but as we get to know 'some' we find they too go through some of the same experiences and even know the same pop culture stuff we do ex) Star Wars. There was a lot I took away from it, that I won't soon forget, which is something Cynthia usually asks us after we finish a work. Things that'll stick with me for some time are the mantis eating Virginia, her Halloween experience, Orson's drug trip, Joey killing all those people in the diner, and so much more.

There's a lot to talk about Stray Bullets. Like Billi 99 it's not something I would've read or heard of if not for this tutorial, and although it was darker than my usual comic taste, I like being exposed to new things and getting a new flavor of something that's not mainstream.