Penny For Your Soul #1 ( Big Dog Ink – Hutchison / Neto / Kramek )
“Danica, the daughter of Lucifer’s first born son Damien, is mucking up the system. With the help of Mary Magdalene, among others, she is out to make a name for herself in the millenia old poker tournament between Heaven and Hell.
Setting up shop in Las Vegas, Nevada, Danica publicly offers to purchase anyone’s soul for the sum of ten thousand dollars. Of course it doesn’t take long before Heaven and Hell start to take notice of daily absentee’s on their manifests and both sides start to push in on Danica’s territory which leads to the trumpeting in of the first sign of the Apocalypse…War.”
For those of you new to ThePullbox, our mission is not just to give honest fanboy reviews of major comics, but also to shift the spotlight over to independent publishers and creators who are working hard to give us fresh stories that you would want to spend your hard earned cash on.
I know have the opportunity to shift our every growing spotlight over to Big Dog Ink out of California. They caught my eye on Facebook of all places, and every growing trend for indie publishers, and sent me a selection of their books. The first one that caught my eye was Penny For Your Soul, and judging by the cover I think you can see why this was the first on my list to read.
For starters, I want to say that I love love love the concept. The battle of Heaven and Hell is being waged in Las Vegas, and if you’ve ever been to Vegas I think you can see who’s winning out there, and the scion of Hell’s daughter has opened a hotel/casino that looks like a Hedonism resort on steroids.
At Eternity the champagne is flowing , the money is flying, the cleavage is showing, and the witless guests just think it’s all part of the theme show. See, if you come to Eternity you will be offered ten-thousand dollars if you “sell your soul”. Each guest is caressed, grouped, and for lack of a better word…temped, to signing on the dotted line thinking again that this is just part of the theme. Little to they know that they just signed over the one thing they need the most in this world, their immortal soul.
Readers should know that this first issue is very much an introduction. We have no major conflict of latch onto, just the charms of our main characters. Which for one issue is more than enough.
The writing is good. The dialog is smart and quirky in all the right parts. I’m not sure if this book could survive on the writing alone (I’ll get to the art next), but word smithing of Tom Hutchison and art of J.B. Neto seem to be a match made in…well, Heaven.
Now on to the art…Wow! J.B. Neto has taken a play from the Zenescope crew and brought sexy and storytelling up to new level. From cover to cover you’re eyes are glued to where Neto wants them to be. The down side to this is that the backgrounds and overall milieu could use some polish. Although, I think I’m one of the few people who actually look at background art, especially when there us a busty devil stripper stage dancing in the foreground.
Lastly, what I was impressed with was the fact that I wasn’t offended. The subject of religion (real world religions, not some Kryptonian made-up crap) is sensitive material and can easily offend someone. This particular comic didn’t do that. There were times when the topic of the main man J.C. came up and I thought they might go too far, but they didn’t. Too often in indie comics you see some pretty anti-Christian messages being sent, and this book certainly has the potential for that, but they never went there. I really hope they don’t because I can see this book getting some real notice an over the top anti-Christian message might alienate a good number of readers.
Grade: B+
