IMAGE COMICS/Netflix – @ImageComics @netflix
[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]
WRITER: Mark Millar – @mrmarkmillar
ARTIST: Simone Bianchi
COLORS: Simone Bianchi
LETTERS: Peter Doherty
EDITOR: Rachel Fulton
COVER: Simone Bianchi
VARIANT COVER ARTISTS: Frank Quitely; Matteo Scalera with Moreno Dinisio; Ozgur Ildirim; Karl Kerschl
28pp, Color, $3.99 U.S. (February 2019)
Rated M / Mature
Sharkey The Bounty Hunter is a new comic book miniseries from writer Mark Millar and artist-colorist Simone Bianchi. Peter Doherty completes the series' creative team. Sharkey The Bounty Hunter focuses on a blue-collar bounty hunter who tracks wanted criminals across the galaxy in his converted, rocket-powered, ice-cream truck . This is third comic book series produced by Mark Millar since he sold his company, Millarworld, to Netflix.
Sharkey The Bounty Hunter #1 opens on the planet “Tefi-8,” where galactic bounty hunter, Sharkey, is bagging his latest quarry, “Multiple Jax.” It is, however, hard out there for a bounty hunter pimp, as the bounty on Jax does not yield enough cash for the debt-ridden Sharkey. Now, the amount on a new bounty, Edra Deering, the most dangerous woman in the galaxy, might alleviate Sharkey of his money woes... if he can capture her. Sharkey, however, isn't the only hunter chasing this hot bounty, and Sharkey is also, suddenly saddled with a child.
While reading Sharkey The Bounty Hunter #1, I kept thinking about the 1990-91 Lobo miniseries by Keith Giffen, Alan Grant, and Simon Bisley with Lovern Kindzierski and Todd Klein (for DC Comics). Everything about this first issue summons the spirit of that first wild and woolly Lobo miniseries. To me, Sharkey is a leaner, down-on-his-luck version of Lobo, and because of his fidelity to integrity, he is less violent and more approachable than Lobo, whose popularity first exploded about 30 years ago.
Artist Simone Bianchi's graphical storytelling is at once familiar and then, foreign. I have seen similar in Heavy Metal and in a number of full-color science fiction comic books series published by Marvel/Epic Comics and DC Comics, back when each publisher was pretending to care about creator-owned comic books. Then, when I look at Bianchi's work here again... and again, it looks as if Bianchi seems to be striving to find something new. Here and there, in this first issue, he does.
Sharkey The Bounty Hunter #1 does not blow me away like last year's The Magic Order #1 did. Still, there is much about this first issue that is alluring, calling me back to the spaceways for a second issue of Sharkey the Bounty Hunter. I won't resist.
7.5 out of 10
http://www.millarworld.tv/
www.imagecomics.com
Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"
The text is copyright © 2019 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for reprint and syndication rights and fees.
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