The Spirit #14

MATTHEW STURGES writer

VICTOR IBAÑEZ artist

EGO colorist

ROB LEIGH letters

LADRÖNN cover art

Now before I go any further I don't really know who Will Eisner is (there goes my "fanboy" cred) and didn't truly start reading the Spirit until DC & Darwyn Cooke (the man behind DC: the New Frontier) helped re-launch the title. More recently it was re-launched again under the banner "First Wave" to go along with their mini series under the same name. I’ve been hooked since the very first issue. The one thing I really love about this comic it's told somewhat in the past but has a present time feel to it.

Now this whole issue is geared around finding this famous cartoonist's fine art, Lou Schleicher. Lou hit it big with a comic he made many years ago finally caving in & sold the movie rights to mobsters. With the money he got he bought a lout of fine art and now those mobsters want that art. Alabaster Cream (she's a young woman who works for Lou) walked in on the mobster getting rough with Lou for info on the arts location. After he gave it up Lou was shot and the mobsters take off.  On Lou’s deathbed he hopes Alabaster will be able to get the art before the mobsters do.

 

Long story short Alabaster runs into the Spirit tells him the whole story & they both go off to find Lou's "Treasure Vault". Lou told Alabaster "You got the clue on you", as in her tattoo of the Red Herring (a villain in his comic). In one of Lou’s comics the Red Herring had a secret lair in the sewers. It was a map to his art. But the mobsters found it before they did & were trashing the whole place. Not finding any of Lou's fine art, they decided to torch the place. But if you couldn't guess, Spirit & Alabaster stopped the mobsters & saved the art from the fire too.

The "punch line" to the issue was all this "fine art", they all thought it was Picasso, Van Gogh, stuff like that. Lou's fine art was art pages from Jack Kirby, Gil Kane, Wally Wood, and other greats in the comic book universe.

Matthew Sturges & Victor Ibáñez told one outstanding Spirit story. Victor Ibáñez art was just simply breathtaking. It has a streamline/gritty look & feel to it that just fits perfectly with the Spirit too. Plus Matthew Sturges wrote the Spirit as if his been writing the comic for years. It was such a great read, that I do believe everyone should give it a try. For only $2.99, how can you go wrong?

-Joseph (AliasJoeG)-