Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: a young artist ends up creating a comic book series that explodes in popularity. That series inspires action figures, movies, television series…the works. Said creator ends up running into a series of misfortunes including debt to a Lithuanian mob and a Broadway play that fails to get off the ground. You’ve probably never heard a story like that…which is where Drawing Blood #1 from Kevin Eastman, David Avallone, Ben Bishop, Brittany Peer, and Taylor Esposito comes in.
Drawing Blood opens with cartoonist Shane “Books” Bookman on a definite downslope of his career. After coming up with the best-selling “Ronin Ragdolls”, he’s struck with tragedy when his partner/mentor Frank Forrest commits suicide. It turns out that Frank left behind a rather large amount of debt, which the Lithuanians intend to collect on. And that’s only the beginning of Books’ problems…
Going in, readers are probably going to expect Drawing Blood to parallel Eastman’s journey co-creating the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and while the Ronin Ragdolls are a nice little nod to the Heroes in a Half Shell, Eastman and Avallone instead decide to paint a story of a creator in free-fall that’s surprisingly funny at times and crushingly poignant at others. The scene that sticks out the most to me is when one of the Ronin Ragdolls literally comes to life in a trippy sequence and starts attacking Books, demanding to know why he’s given up drawing. It’s that mix of the ludicrous and the emotional that’s the backbone of this comic.
Drawing Blood also looks unlike any other comic out there thanks to the work that Eastman and Bishop put on the page. Bishop’s work has a human touch; you can see the regret, the sadness, the loneliness dancing in Books’ eyes, as well as the glimmer of hope that things might go his way again. Eastman lends his trademark style to a flashback detailing Books and Frank’s first meeting, and thanks to Peer’s sepia-colored tones it is rather emotional – especially when you consider the fact that Frank is expressing his own regrets about the creative business.
Finally, there’s Epsoito’s lettering. Most of it takes place in the form of narration scribbed upon notebook paper, as if the reader is peering into Books’ thoughts. With the cadence of Eastman and Avallone’s script it also feels like a neo-noir of sorts, down to the “protagonist narrating his life in reverse”. It’s clear that Esposito is having fun with the “Books vs. Ronin Ragdolls” sequence, as bold, pronunced lettering you’d read in a superhero smackdown collides with the smaller, more intimate whisper of a man at his last rope.
Drawing Blood #1 takes turns that readers won’t expect, delivering a fast-paced, sometimes funny, and fearlessly crafted portrait about the pitfalls of fame. In all honesty, this book makes the perfect parallel to Chip Zdarsky’s Public Domain, especially in terms of subject matter.
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