Last week saw the release of Loose Ends #1 from 12 Gauge Comics.
The book is written by Jason Latour and drawn by Chris Brunner with colours by Rico Renzi (http://kickstandkids.blogspot.com/).
I thought I'd spoken about Chris Brunner before but it doesn't look like it.
The first time I saw his work was in Star Wars Tales in 2000, drawing a Lando Calrissian story. It stood out as being kind of cartoony and very kinetic but the storytelling was very strong and fluid. He was added to my list of people to watch out for.
The name wasn't too fresh in my mind when he surfaced again in late 2003 on Batman Legends Of The Dark Knight. The 5 part story running from 172 to 176 was written by John Wagner with colours by James Sinclair. A great story with a load of hillbillies coming for revenge on Gotham City. The art, again very strong on the storytelling, reminded me of a mix of Michael Golden and Paul Pope with nice flat colours giving the overall effect of a Gaijin book by Jason Pearson or Brian Stelfreeze.
The covers are striking, coloured by his studio mate and artist partner, Rico Renzi. I gather that DC weren't willing to take a chance with a new artist and his own choice of colourist but the covers point to what it could have been.
Well worth looking up as back issues as it was never collected.
One of the first birthday presents from my wife (along with myself and my flat mate) were the twos pages below form part three. Again the fluidity is striking and you can see the windows and lights inked and in collaboration with the colourist, flipped and colour held to striking effect.
And a Green Arrow sketch sketch which came with:
Brunner has done a few covers over the years but has spent a lot of time working on production art, trading cards, ad work, a short story in the Ride: Foreign Parts with Rico Renzi on zipatone(below) and it would seem, Loose Ends.
Loose Ends #1 was a great start to a crime story. While Jason Latour has surfaced in the last couple of years as a really strong artist, according to him in an interview on Sidebar, apparently the production of this book with him writing has been going on even longer.
If timing had been different he'd be a writer who can REALLY draw as opposed to an artist writing. Latour, Brunner and Renzi share a studio and it's evident in the strength of the collaboration here. The dialogue is very strong, the sense of place is great. I don't want to go too much into the story as it's barely begun but I loved it. Don't take my word for it
Preview here and Tim Callahan's review here
