Nate Bowden

Having never seen the original movie, Tombstone, that this graphic novel takes a stab at updating, I’m not sure if I can comment on whether or not it’s successful in transplanting the story from the Wild West to the crime ridden streets. What I can comment on is whether or not it was successful in entertaining me.

Despite using an existing story, Nate Bowden presents us with a thrilling page turner leaving me surprisingly impressed. His main character, Doc, is a grizzled ex-cop who is more or less trying to enjoy what little time he has left. His relationship with Kate goes from one extreme to the next after he makes known what his ailment is. My mind couldn’t quite process why she would stay with him knowing what he did, even after his half-assed explanation he used to try and absolve himself of any guilt.

All of the names you may remember return in Wyatt, Virgil, and Morgan Earp; Curly Bill Brocious and Ike Clanton. Not being familiar with the source material, I can’t comment on how true they were to their characters.

The artwork wasn’t bad although I had some trouble differentiating between a few of the characters in certain scenes. No idea if this was a fault of the artist, Doug Dabbs, or if this advanced copy had a few kinks to work out. Aside from that, there were a lot of great viewpoints from which certain scenes were presented.

Overall, I liked it. I think that I could have benefited more had I know the original story but on the other hand, I’m sort of glad I was able to read this as a standalone piece.… (mais)

I shouldn't have liked Nathaniel Bowden & Tracy Yardley's Riding Shotgun vol. 1 (TokyoPop, $9.99) for it's senseless, over-the-top violence, but it was gleeful and charming enough to win me over in its nihilism. Set in an alternate world where assassination is legal and regulated, Doyle Harrington and his partner Abby are up-and-coming assassins looking to make the jump to the big leagues. But their plans go awry when one of their targets turns out to be Doyle's old high school girlfriend. Yardley's art is appropriately energetic. The car chase sequence that runs for about 17 pages at three-quarters of the way through is one of the best I've seen represented in comics. Riding Shotgun doesn't quite measure up to Bambi and Her Pink Gun in the ranks of violent nihilistic comics, but it's a good read for fans of that sort of stuff and I'll be looking forward to the next volume.… (mais)