When a comic company gives you the opportunity to read a new series by a team who won multiple awards with their last big project together, you bite their hand off. The comic in question that won all the awards was 100 Bullets, this comic I’m about to review is Moonshine by Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso. It’s being published by Image Comics and it’s coming out fairly soon. This is my review of issue one.
Now, thanks to The Simpsons episode "Homer vs. the Eighteenth Amendment", I’m pretty clued up on that whole American prohibition thing that happened. This book is set during that time (in West Virginia) and we’re brought into the story when some guys are about to knock over a hillbilly distillery. You learn pretty early on that these hillbillies are not to be fucked with! Going through issue one, we’re introduced to our protagonist Lou Pirlo who works for the mob and is tasked with going and striking a deal with Hiram Holt, a good ol’ boy who lives out in the backwoods. Lou’s boss wants this hooch because it’s the best stuff around and he’s not the sort of guy who takes no for an answer... Holt is the kinda guy who doesn’t take any shit, so you can guess where it’s going.
The issue moves at a steady pace and you get all of the information you need before we really get into anything tasty. When I say a steady pace, I mean a slow and steady pace. There’s a lot of chatting and not that much action to speak of but I don’t mind that. By the time I got to the end, Azzarello had me snared and he made me curious about what’s going to happen next. On the last page, I say to myself, “the fuck’s this about?” and BOOM. I’m in dangerous territory because I also have issue two and three in my possession... Fighting the urge to read ‘em, but I know if I do read ‘em, I’ll be fucking myself out of reading this title for three months or so. So, I’m going to hang fire for a little while but I know I’ll be back soon enough to these settings.
I quite enjoyed the book overall. It was slow, but a good kind of slow. I’m a fan of Brian Azzarello’s writing anyway, so the more books he writes the better. This story is quality Azzarello. A dark, gritty, crime story which I think is going to grow into one of Brian’s better stories. Art by Eduardo Risso, well… it’s Eduardo Risso! I like that guy’s style, too. The fact these guys are working together again is/was enough for me to give it a shot and it didn’t disappoint.
In closing, I’ll point you towards this book. It was a bit of a slow start but I think it’s going to be special (I promise I haven’t read #2 or #3 yet) and if you’re a fan of the creative team, you won’t want to miss it. Same goes if you’re a fan of crime comics, it’s well worth picking yourself a copy of the book up just to see what’s going down. And here’s my little bit, just in case Mr. Azzarello or Image want to quote me on a back cover or social media… Ahem:
“There’s a decent story brewing here.”
That’ll do, haha!
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Moonshine #1 Writer: Brian Azzarello Artist: Eduardo Risso Publisher: Image Comics Price: $2.99 Format: Ongoing; Print/Digital
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