SECOND CHANCES #1
Written by Ricky Mammone | Art by Max Bertolini
LeBlanc is in the business of making people disappear and offering them another start at life. People in trouble. People worth saving.
When an old friend named Paul calls, LeBlanc rushes to return a favor and save his life. Two armored assassins in oni masks have a different plan and Leblanc is forced turn-tail in search of Paul’s daughter instead. What follows is a serpentine thriller with rising suspense that points toward dark implications of the character’s pasts. An intense debut issue with high ambitions.
It’s not often a comic book series is launched with it’s authors evoking the names of French NewWave legends Tuffant and Goddard. LeBlanc’s ultra-cool demeanor, inherent kindness, and supporting cast of sexy, outrageous, and mysterious characters could easily fit in such films as Breathless, Day For Night, or Band of Outsiders.
Bertolini’s stunning pages of black-and-white art are a perfect collaboration for Memmone’s melodic dialogue and abstract plotting. When he describes the work “… like a vivid, dark and psychedelic dream.” or says that “The deeper I went into the pages, the more the pages seemed to draw themselves, as if endowed with a powerful will of their own”. I can almost believe him.
A slick and cool thriller with intrigue, action, and broken promises, Second Chances has set a high bar with a terrific debut issue that left me excited for more.
-B