The heist story has been told a million times over, but after putting Everyone Loves a Jewel Thief #1 down, I can say it’s never been told quite like this. It’s a story that starts in a police investigation room, as two detectives interview suspects and try to piece everything together. While the reader is in the dark, we uncover clues with the cops, with some only coming to us, in a story that’ll get so tangled in your mind you’ll be dying to know how to straighten the square of mystery.
As series artist and co-writer Aaron Campbell’s cover reveals, Everyone Loves a Jewel Thief #1 is about putting the team together. The fact that we open on cops interrogating folks in a tight room at the police department suggests the heist clearly went wrong, or at least wrong enough for the suspects to get caught. That keeps you, the reader, on the edge of how we got here, a nice place to be, as flashbacks detail each player’s role.
The story isn’t only unconventional because it starts there, but it also brings in themes of Dungeons & Dragons and a lead character who is a writer who needs a big break. Reframing a heist as a kind of D&D campaign makes sense, given that the guy pulling together the plan is a writer himself.
He’s screwed. Guess he needs to pull off a heist.
Credit: Ignition Press
Not everyone in this crew knows each other well, with some being your typical dirtbag, recluse, or thrill seeker. Aaron Campbell’s character acting is superb here, drawing you into the different personalities as if they were real-life actors playing each role. I found myself lingering on panels simply to soak in a character’s reaction. Not every character gets a ton of time on the page, but through the art, there’s enough there to get a sense of them before the series digs in deeper in following issues.
Another huge win for the book is its treatment of environments. The seedy bar the crew meets at looks practically real, from the scuff of wooden booths to the crushed cans on the table. Jordie Bellaire’s colors keep the realism alive, with standout elements like the red light in the bar casting an ominous glow on our characters, or the creeping sunset in another. The interrogation room is quite blank, but that’s on purpose, so we zero in on the characters’ acting. There’s also a great double-page splash of the crew gathered together in one half, with the other revealing them as their D&D characters. That adds an interesting wrinkle of adventure to the heist motif.
Andworld Design letters the issue, with good word balloon placement. The slightly hand-drawn look to the lettering adds a bit of realism to the dialogue.
With the crew gathered in this issue and the second issue cover teasing that the plan will be revealed, this issue serves up a whopper of a cliffhanger. It’s something you won’t see coming, and it increases the stakes on these regular folk trying to pull off a crime with as little punishment as possible. That element further makes this heist different from past heist projects.
Everyone Loves a Jewel Thief #1 takes a familiar genre and reshapes it into something far more playful and layered. The interrogation structure, paired with its D&D-inspired lens, creates a mystery that is both engaging and unpredictable. With strong visual storytelling and a hook that lingers, this is a standout debut that promises a heist worth following closely.
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