Artist Brett Wood was kind enough to send me the first five issues of his and Eric Rampson's self-published superhero comic The Silver Bullet. Before getting down to the details, here's my summation/pull quote: "This comic is absolutely insane and completely lacking in logic. Wood and Rampson have crafted a superhero comic that embodies the Age of Awesome." Now, to explain my sentiments...
The Silver Bullet #1-5. Art by Brett Wood. Words by Eric Rampson. Covers #1-4 by Brett Wood. #5 cover by Khoi Pham.
Having read these five issues, I can't quite tell you who the Silver Bullet is or what exactly he does. He's a kind of dickish superhero that's best friends with Big Foot, gets sent back in time by an alien, joins forces with a guy from the 1980s, saves a hot alien princess from some other aliens, gets sent back to the year 2000 where we learn he's a werewolf and he bites his past self to turn himself into a werewolf before a Nazi werewolf gives his past self the Silver Bullet costume, he's rescued by his superhero buddies from the present, and his past self hooks up with a former dinosaur that's not a beautiful woman. I think. I might have gotten a detail or two wrong, but that's the gist of these five issues. As I said, it's batshit insane.
I quickly latched onto the idea that this was not a comic done from full script, especially given a note in issue five where werewolf Silver Bullet's costume appears in its entirety after only his helmet was placed on his head and a character wonders how that happened: "Hey, Brett, where'd his suit come from? I'm tired of having to come up with answers for this stuff." I asked Wood about the creative process for The Silver Bullet and he said:
We do an classic Marvel style. Eric writes a brief description of what's happening on each page and I try to visualize it in my head and then I draw the pages and he the writes the rest over top of it. Every once in a while I'll give direction as far as the characters and their personalities. For issue 1, I came up with a brief synopsis and threw it on Ronin comics forum asking for a writer and talked Eric into as we had worked on a story for Ronins Hero anthology for charity that still has yet to be released. After that he expanded issue 1's plot and threw SB in a time space warp and has been writing ever since. My idea was for SB to come across as a bit of a cock but slowly but surely show that he's actually a really good person behind all the layers. Kinda like the remake of Dawn of the Dead and the security guard who was a prick but then sacrifices himself in the end.
His answer pretty much confirmed what I thought, because this book reads a bit like an artist-driven title. Now, depending on your perspective, that can be a good or bad thing. I think it lends The Silver Bullet a crazy energy that wouldn't exist otherwise, but it also leads to some odd developments like the Silver Bullet's costume snafu. I guess it depends on what you want: storytelling logic or awesomeness. Because, sadly, it's tough to have both at the same time.
One of the biggest flaws in this book is storytelling ADD. Ideas are raised and discarded quickly. At the end of issue two, the Silver Bullet and caveman-who's-actually-from-the-'80s Blaise are tasked with fighting their way to save an alien princess that can send them both back to their proper times. Issue three begins months later after they've already fought their way to the place where the princess is being kept and Blaise is now named Blaine. He's also gotten a giant sword, they're accompanied by a talking t-rex from the time period where they were both initially sent, and cut through the enemies they face with little effort. There's little sense of struggle in this comic. Obstacles occur and they confuse the protagonists, but don't really challenge them. Problems act as insane plot points that, once explained, are ignored and cast aside.
The upside of that is that the book never grows stale. Issue breeze by in a blur of insanity and craziness. First the Silver Bullet is a regular superhero, then he's hanging out with cavement, then the alien he fought is the first issue is actually a good guy that wants to send him home, then he's saved the princess and is sent back to the year 2000 where we learn he's a werewolf, infected himself, his costume is what keeps him from transforming, he returns to his proper time period after beating the bad guys... There's always something new to learn and experience. It's a fun, entertaining comic. Things don't always make sense or add up, but, before you can care too much, the story has moved on and what didn't make sense doesn't actually matter anymore either.
The dialogue is a little cheesy and clunky at times. It's very 'on the nose' to what's going on at any given time, adding to the disjointed storytelling. But, that does make for some funny lines as Rampson throws out whatever seems to work in any given situation. When Wood draws a panel of birds, Rampson has the Silver Bullet quietly say, "Ooo, look, doves. Just like a John Woo flick." The Silver Bullet's personality lends itself to this style, though. He's a bit of a shallow jerk that seems only interested in what's in front of him. A bombastic-yet-loveable-jerk. He's the kind of guy that grabs Blaise/Blaine, tells him he's his new sidekick, and then just assumes that's cool, moving on with the story.
In the first issue, one thing that Rampson does that I really like is adding narrative captions that explain what sound we'd 'hear' if the fight between the Silver Bullet and an alien weren't happening in space. His descriptions are casual, like "This one would probably sound like 'SKLORCH!' or something" and "This would be a simple 'BIFF!' or 'POW!' I think." He clearly doesn't take his scripting too seriously and goes with the nonsensical flow.
Wood's art has a good cartoony look to it. He tries to keep things relatively basic, at first, and the earlier issues are stronger than what comes later. Oddly, the fifth issue contains the weakest art with figures much more rushed and less polished (and pencil lines not erased). He slowly shifts from a less-detailed, more open style to one that relies on more shading and detail. He does improve as the series goes on with issue five acting as a strange drop in quality. It resembles the less polished art of the first issue's back-up strip than the art of the actual issues.
One area where Wood's art surprises me is how quickly he rushes through action scenes. Most action scenes take up a page or two with a few poses of people fighting before it's all over. That doesn't really show off what he can do since there's a strong lack of continuity -- if only because there's not enough there to form a continuity. I know that he doesn't generate the plots, but the manner in which scenes play out comes off like an artist that gets bored and wants to move on. I think he would benefit from focusing on one scene for an extended period of time and trying to give it a continuous flow. With only 12 pages per issue for the main story, it's hard to balance between making a story feel complete and worthwhile, and delivering strong, singular scenes.
His storytelling does improve, like I said. In the first issue, almost every shot of a person talking in a midsized head-on shot of them from their chest up and he does get away from that as he goes. Each issue, he tries something new, be it a different sort of page layout or a new and different angle to make a character talking a little more visually interesting.
Each issue also features a two- to four-page back-up story. The stand-outs there are the third and fifth issues' stories. The third issue's back-up focuses on the Silver Bullet's rogues gallery coming together with the idea of helping to mould him into a proper superhero and then crushing him, because it will be so much sweeter then. The story reminds me of the sort of supervillain work Joe Casey does. The fifth issue's back-up story is the tale of the Golden Age Silver Bullet and his sidekick Kid Powder Keg fighting against communist supervillains posing as an American family in 1952. It's filled with bad puns, corny jokes, and is just a lot of fun.
If my review leans towards the negative, it's because these comics do lack a professional polish. There are a lot of storytelling flaws when it comes to the plotting, the structure of stories, the characterisations, and basic continuity. That said, you're not likely to find many comics that are as willing to toss out insane concepts because it seems like a cool thing to do or have this sort of purposefully cheesy/funny dialogue. This is a comic that decides to have a talking t-rex turn into a hot chick, because, well, why not? The superhero's a werewolf now! Time travel fun! It's good, crazy fun. If that's your thing, give the book a try.
Some links (each of which includes links for purchasing copies of The Silver Bullet):