The thrill of a heist story is in the little details. How will the heist be pulled off? What’s in it for the requisite thieves? More importantly…how does it all go wrong? (Let’s admit, half the fun of a heist is seeing all the ways a carefully laid plan can fall apart.) In the case of Bronze Faces #1, the creative team takes a different approach as leads Timi, Sango, and Gbonka are robbing a museum in order to take back artwork that’s connected to their Nigerian heritage.
The idea of pulling “a reverse Indiana Jones” is something that’s been discussed before; it’s even been done in comics before with the supremely-crafted Horizon Experiment series of one-shots from Image Comics. But the writing duo of Shobo and Shof take Bronze Faces to another level by exploring the connection its protagonists have to this art – and to each other.
For starters, most of the art belonged to Timi’s father, who imparts to him at a young age the importance of art and how it carries the stories of their ancestors. It makes the present day revelation that Timi’s father died, and that the pair hadn’t spoken in years, hit all the harder. So does the revelation that the artwork Timi and his freinds are stealing is the work that belonged to his father. That same emotional undercurrent runs through his conversations with Sango, which are spiked with a romantic nature, or Gbonka, who’s more confrontational.
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The artwork from Alexandre Tefenkgi also captures the divide between past and present, aided by stunning colors from Lee Loughridge. The past sections feel warmer and more inviting, with Timi and his friends never out of each other’s sight or his fathers. Compare that to the present day sections: their first meeting sees them in a bustling party, literally separated by throngs of people, representing the various gaps that’ve grown between them, physically and emotionally.
Tefenkgi’s best work has to be the opening pages, which quickly set the stage for the type of story Bronze Faces is trying to be. Where most heist stories would usually start with a carefully planned caper, things start off chaotic here as Sango busts open a case, leading to a mad dash from the lone guard on display, and what’s seemingly an accidental tackle. Each panel builds and builds upon the action, leading to that final payoff – and Tefenkgi even revisits it during the end!
But the part of Bronze Faces that’ll really stick with readers is Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou. Otsmane-Elhaou fills each page with letters, and all of them are visually distinct. A siren going off has a loud red tinge. Musical notes from a drum encircle a young Timi as he plays his heart out. Sango’s shouts of pain and rage are masked with a golden tint, immediately drawing the reader’s eye. That’s to say nothing of the captions, which have their own unique designs and sun-kissed hue.
Bronze Faces #1 is unlike any heist story you’ve read before. But that’s what makes it great: the attention paid to the emotional undercurrent, not to mention its approach to reclaiming one’s culture, results in a comic that must be read.
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