Tales Of WesterNoir, the short story anthology spin-off Accent UK’s ongoing old West demon hunting series WesterNoir, returns with a second issue as the two WesterNoir creators, writer Dave West and artist Gary Crutchley, both turn their hands to writing with art duties taken this time by others. Both tales in this issue feature Jim Wilson, the demon hunter who pre-dated the main series’ Josiah Black.
In “Lure For A Monster” Marl Earl takes on the art duties as Dave West tells a seemingly straightforward tale of Wilson taking on a troll and his henchmen who are mining into the side of a hill. Mal Earl has a loose, highly stylised art style which can often lean heavily on the grey scale shading rather than the lines in the panel and, while I do like his art, given that much of this tale is set at night there are some panels in which all the shading is too similar to readily make out what is being shown.
In Gary Crutchley’s “A Righteous Man”, Joe Campbell’s intricate and photo realistic artwork is the polar opposite of Mal Earl’s as we see the original recruitment of Jim Wilson by Baylocke to demon hunting and the handing over of the goggles that show the true nature of the demons he is expected to face. While this could easily be the end of the short tale Wilson is then tested on his first mission against porcupine beasts which rounds out the story nicely and shows Gary Crutchley is as adept at writing WesterNoir stories as he is at drawing them.
Tales Of WesterNoir continues the impressive world of WesterNoir allowing fans a glimpse of an ‘expanded universe’ of otherwise secondary characters as well as being a lower price point sampler for those who have not yet read any of the main series.
There are more details of all Accent UK’s titles on their website, their blog and their Facebook group.
There are more details of Dave West’s work on his blog, Strange Times.
There are more details of Gary Crutchley’s work on his blog, Driblin’ On.
The downthetubes review of Tales Of WesterNoir Issue 1 is here.
The downthetubes reviews of each of the WesterNoir books are as follows:
Tales Of WesterNoir issue 2 and other Accent UK titles are available at the at Accent UK sales table at the MCM Northern Ireland Comic Con at the Eikon Exhibition Centre at the Maze complex near Lisburn this weeked 25/26 June 2016 and at the Glasgow Comic Con at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall next weekend 2/3 July 2016.
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