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Chris Condon has set himself some ambitious goals with Night People. Over four issues with a changing creative team, he adapts Barry Gifford’s (influential American author, best known for Wild at Heart and the Sailor and Lula series) short story collection into comic form.
First of all, the approach of having the four different but interconnected stories visualized by different illustrators, all masters of their craft, is promising.
Condon was able to get Brian Level on board for Night People #1, and he does an excellent job. He stirringly captures the slightly nervous, somewhat dreamlike, certainly trippy atmosphere of the story about Bettie and Cutie, two religious and feminist fanatics and ex-convicts on a conversion tour through the States.
Level’s line-emphasized style is wavering between crime noir and horror comic, and creates a slightly oppressive mood through close-ups and changes of perspective.
Also, Ronda Pattinson demonstrates a deft hand with her subtle coloring.
The story itself is, as I wrote, a little trippy, not to say erratic, but even if you feel the need to read it again in order to understand and put together all the components, you can follow it well.
The characters are lively, but still somewhat sketchy. Which is not untypical for a short story. This sketchiness also helps my imagination to increase the creepy mood and the horror part of the story.
To put this first of four parts in a nutshell, I liked it. Night People #1 is a good comic radiating a strong 90s indie comic/cinema vibe that divertingly puts literature into a more visual form.
(You can subscribe to this series at Walt's Comic Shop through Manage Comics. Simply click HERE).
Night People #1 (Of 4) Cover B Joelle Jones Variant (Mature)
€6,90
From the mind of literary icon Barry Gifford-internationally renowned creator of Wild at Heart and cowriter of David Lynch's neo-noir masterpiece Lost Highway-Night People is a pulsating roadmap of the American subconscious, where neon-lit Southern nights give way to lipstick,… read more
