Blog

Footprints #1
Publisher: Independent
Writer: Joey Esposito
Artist: Jonathan Moore
Cover: Jonathan Moore

“Iced” Part 1: If you ever picked up an (mainstream) independent or independent publisher comic, chances are you’d find an anti-hero or X-Men style team. These days, indies seem to be chock full of what Hollywood refers to as “high concepts.” “Colony on Mars gets attacked by zombies.” “Robot goes back in time and creates steam punk army.” “It’s as if Die Hard took place on Jurassic Park.” So when I heard “Big Foot becomes detective,” I decided to hold all my judgments until after I read the comic. After all, interesting ideas are a dime a dozen, everyone has one or two of them. But to turn them into a good and memorable story…that takes talent.

Fortunately, the team behind Footprints has talent. Jonathan Moore does a great job with the artwork. All of the characters are drawn well; I can’t find any glaring flaws with it. I’m also impressed with how he did the black and white inking. It’s not uncommon for a noir or detective comic to use black and white coloring. But a lot of times it’s just a gimmick to make it feel noir, or the shading is done poorly to the point where you don’t know what is going on. Footprints avoids these pratfalls and puts the black and white to good use.

I also like Adam O. Pruett’s lettering. He sticks with a simple, easy to read font with the dialog and captions. Nothing that knocked my socks off with the SFXs, but I’d rather have that than something that gets in the way with the story and artwork.

Esposito’s writing was enjoyable by far. The characters were all unique and it will be interesting to see how they develop in future issues. I admit, the Devil’s “Joisey” accent could be a bit too over the top at times, but overall I enjoyed the dialog. Every character has their unique aspects without Esposito trying too hard.

There’s one word that describes the story itself. Solid. It feels like a lost tale from Dark Horse Presents (during their early glory years). The story is your basic detective noir story, where Big Foot’s brother gets killed and now he gets the old gang back together for one last case. Only this time the gang includes the Devil, the Loch Ness Monster, Megalodon, and Choop (Chupacabra).

In fact, if you took out the creatures and put in normal people, you’d still get a classic detective story. And that’s not a bad thing, either. This is a comic that doesn’t need cheap gimmicks or reliance on high concept ideas; the story is strong and can stand on its own. Still, I’m curious as to how the story will develop and if they’ll start taking advantage of the creatures’ mythologies. Either way, whether they stick with the classic noir or push the high concept of Big Foot as a detective, they can’t really lose as long as they keep going strong.

If you would like to purchase the comic or support its continuation, the creators have started a Kickstarter fund for donations and purchasing. You can also purchase it at joeyesposito.com.

Editor’s Note: ComicAttack.net has been officially nominated for an Eagle Award! Please click here to vote for us in the “Favorite Comic Book Website” category (question #27). Thank you for your continued support!

Andrew Hudson
ahudson@comicattack.net
@Hudsonian

A copy of this comic was provided by the publisher for review.