By James L. White and Dalibor Talajic
Colors by Juanmar, Letters by Ed Dukeshire
Published by Boom! Studios, April 2007. $3.99
The cover of HUNTER’S MOON tells me it’s written by James L. White, writer of the Academy Award-Winning RAY, and the script feels like an early draft of a screenplay. There’s so much dialogue it doesn’t leave much work for the art to do, and the dialogue itself has the bloodless efficiency of movie-talk to it. The plot concerns Linc (short for Lincoln), who wants nothing more than to take his latest hot girlfriend up to a secluded cabin for the week -- until he gets saddled with the son he just can’t seem to connect with! His son wants to be a rapper … but Linc wants him to go to law school! Linc wants to order a piece of pie (“apple’s usually safe”) … but the eccentric waitiress won’t stop yappin’! We quickly discover that small town yokels pull guns on black kids for bumping into white folks, all Linc and his son need are some quality alone-time to find their stride, and that Strong Men Sometimes Cry.
I picked this book up because of two threads on the Engine, one wondering what Boom! Studios titles anyone was reading, and the other asking about titles featuring black women as lead characters. The ads for other Boom! titles on the back cover illustrate that they’re designed to option their titles as movies (“Cover Girl … A Lethal Weapon and Rush Hour-style action-comedy!” & “Dominion -- A new series that takes the storytelling tone of the TV show Heroes and gives it an Independence Day twist.”), and while it’s nice to see in HUNTER’S MOON a title that features black folks in lead roles, it would be nice if those roles, and the story they inhabit, were doing something new. Even the first issue’s twist ending (spoiled on the Boom! website if you’re interested) isn’t enough to bring me back for issue two -- it really just sets the story up to cover even more well-tread territory.
Tell me more: Boom! Studios.
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