A creative cacophony of craziness.
Creative Staff:
Story: Damon Gentry, Troy Nixey
Art: Troy Nixey
Colors: Guy Major
Letterer: Troy Nixey
What They Say:
After busting a Canadian drug ring, down-on-his-luck cop Artie Buckle tries to keep new partner Vinegar Teeth under control. But can an alcoholic, miserable bum like Artie really fight crime and work together with a Lovecraftian monster with a heart of gold?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
While I enjoyed aspects of the first issue of Vinegar Teeth from Gentry and Nixey I also struggled with the structure of the narrative and how it moved about. It was a bit jumpy in some ways and less than clear in others, especially with the artwork and its heavy use of murky colors – which are appropriate but ends up feeling too detailed, too busy, and too muddied. That continues on here as the story feels like it just gets even more nuts simply in that it’s hard to latch onto what’s really going on. Combine that with it being almost too dialogue-heavy in some ways as well as too much going on with outbursts that breaks the flow and it feels like a mess. The first issue at least had some structure in how it brought Vinegar Teeth to the forefront where this one feels like it’s just flailing around.
And that makes it hard to really figure out what to talk about here. The opening piece dealing with how things went badly at the Canadian drug bust has some legal moments that are amusing as it replays what happened that night with the organs and guts that just turned into a bigger mess but it feels incomplete in how it’s presented. As it moves forward, we get more moments with Vinegar Teeth and Artie together where it further reinforces just how much of an ass Artie is and how little I really want to see him on the page. Not that Vinegar Teeth is engaging as he’s little more than a nice guy in a weird form that’s far too easily pushed into bad directions. But Artie’s just full of fury and rage about so many things that even acknowledging that he might be having a touch of fun with a musical performance in a bar sets him off.
Vinegar Teeth is easily taken advantage of by a couple of cops in order to prod Artie, someone they hate because of how much of a weird stickler he is with things – including writing up a cop that was writing him up for something. There’s a weird turn where they send Vinegar Teeth off to essentially serenade Artie with a tuba cannon after telling him that Artie loves music, which he really doesn’t. It just turns into a mess from there which puts Artie on edge and wanting less to do with Vinegar Teeth, just in time for Vinegar Teeth to get a promotion after dealing with a group of scouts that have apparently held up the local bank. Or something like that. It’s all just so muddled that I can’t make heads or tales of things after the fact or during it.
In Summary:
While I really do like the artwork and how its presented because it’s so not the norm in many ways, and I like the concept of Vinegar Teeth himself, Artie is just making this book a mess and the flow of the book makes it difficult to connect with. It moves too fast, is simply too busy, and doesn’t feel like it really knows what kind of story it wants to tell, and that makes it a real struggle as a whole even if individual moments are fun and engaging.
Grade: C-
Age Rating: 15+
Released By: Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: February 21st, 2018
MSRP: $3.99
