Customer Reviews

Hellcity

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Hellcity is the product of Gigantic Graphic Novels who produced the small press gem Dead West in 2005. Hellcity is a typical, 40's style crime noir detective story with one major twist...it is set in hell. In this case, Hell is a major urban city where demons delight in torturing humans by giving them wedgies, slamming automatic doors on them, and forcing them into all manner of humiliating manual labors. Bill Tankerslee had been a detective in his life which was shattered when his wife was blown away by a shotgun-toting guy dressed like Bela Lugosi in Dracula. Bill took his own life and ended up in hell where he spends his days cooking bacon at the "piggery" and his nights with his annoying demon roommate who drinks Bill's last beer and draws mustaches on the picture of his wife.

Bill is given the opportunity to change his fortunes when a beautiful demon comes to him with an offer he can't refuse. She wants to put his detective skills to use. He can get out of the piggery and get an apartment uptown without a demon roommate, and all he has to do is follow Lucifer himself in order to find out why the Lord of Hell has been acting so strangely as of late. Hell is on the verge of chaos as the demon underlings all want to be in line for Hell's throne.

Hellcity presents a clever twist on the infernal plane. Ironic in that it isn't so different than real life, sans the demons running around and pooping on the sidewalk. I loved writer Macon Blair's modern version of hell even more than the story. The story ends up being a bit of a clichéd detective story but it's the elements surrounding the story that lift it above the ordinary. The art by Joe Flood is solid but not flashy. Straight black & white line work. I loved the expressions on the faces of the demons while they went about their work annoying their human guests in various ways. I was somewhat let down by the fact that the story will be continued in vol. 2 but there's enough good stuff in here to make me want to see the conclusion.

Reviewed by Tim Janson

I am relatively new to the world of graphic novels but am doing my best to cath up on my reading. I love Sandman, and Hellblazer, am into DMZ and Ex Machina. Astro City was brilliant and there is much more to go... but I have to give extra kudos and appreciation for Hell City and the Indie lable Gigantic Graphic Novels. This is one of the smartest, most interesting and seemingly most underrated titles I've come across and I hope to see a lot more from Macon Blair and Joe Flood in the future. How this hasn't become a feature film I don't know, but Blair seems to write with cinematic undertsanding and flair in mind and Flood translates the accompanying aesthetic seemlessly.

I've since checked out some of the other Gigantic titles and can highly recommend Teenagers From Mars and Dead West as well. As always it seems that the overlooked indie writers are doing some of the darkest, smartest and most compelling work, here's to hoping they get the attention they deserve.