Shot Callerz [Paperback]

Gary Phillips (Author), Brett Weldele (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 10, 2003

Nea had it all--a man, a truckload of cash, and a fresh start. Or she did until her boyfriend gunned her down. Now nothing will come between Nea and her revenge. Novelist Gary Phillips and artist Brett Weldele drop you into a brutal world of urban action in this new trade paperback.

Product Details

• Paperback: 120 pages
• Publisher: Oni Press (March 10, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1929998465
• ISBN-13: 978-1929998463
• Product Dimensions: 9.9 x 6.4 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,295,686 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Hardcore, Gritty Blaxploitation, January 23, 2007

By 

Guy L. Gonzalez "Malcontent" (Bloomfield, NJ) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Shot Callerz (Paperback)

(3.5 stars) The whole blaxploitation genre is one I generally don't like, but like any genre, in the right hands, it can result in an entertaining tale.

By day, Gary Phillips is apparently (I'm not familiar with his work) a novelist in the vein of the influential Donald Goines, and judging by his crisp writing here -- a classic hardboiled, bullets-and-broads tale of double and triple-crossing, blaxploitation meter unabashedly set to full-throttle -- he's not only a master of the form, but one who clearly has a genuine love for it. (As opposed to, say, Quentin Tarantino's fetishistic obsession.) After a short story "prelude" introduces the main players and sets things up, Phillips jumps right into the action as his lead, Nea Garvin, is shot in the back by her boyfriend on the heels of a successful heist where she served as the inside woman, and is left for dead. What follows is a fast-paced tale of revenge that is highlighted by Nea's evolution from naive hoodrat to pistol-packin' mama, complemented by a colorful cast of supporting characters and an unexpectedly sentimental ending.

Brett Weldele's sketchy black-and-white artwork is an effective mix of the realistic and impressionistic, complementing the morally grey tone of the story very well. His dynamic page layouts and camera angles communicate the fast pace of the story while allowing it to breathe when necessary, and each of his characters are distinctive and emotive, both facially and in their body language.

I'm still not a fan of blaxploitation, but credit where credit's due. Shot Callerz isn't high art by any means, but if you enjoy hardcore, gritty crime stories like Ed Brubaker's Criminal -- or, god forbid, thought Wings of Anansi was any good -- you'll love what Phillips and Weldele have to offer.