Publisher: Image
Writer: Jonathan Ross
Artist: Tommy Lee Edwards
Cover: Tommy Lee Edwards
“The Fangs of New York”: Prohibition era New York was dangerous enough with gangsters filling the streets with blood on a regular basis, but now with the arrival of the Dragonmir family things are about to get even bloodier. This new family is actually a large clan of vampires, forced to leave their homeland. And while the eldest brother and leader of the clan is content with staying to the old ways until a certain prophecy can be fulfilled, his younger brother is making moves against the major crime families and against his older brother’s position of power. Amongst all of this is a reporter that may be on the trail of a story she’s not ready for, plus an alien ship has just crash landed outside of Coney Island.
For a five issue mini-series Turf #1 gives you plenty to digest, as Jonathan Ross introduces us to the major players, though the gangsters and the vampires take up more of the story with only a glimpse of the aliens who will be joining later on. Now when I say “a lot to digest,” I really mean it, because there are so many caption boxes and word balloons that a lot of the panels suffer from clutter, and Tommy Lee Edwards’s artwork is actually interfered with at times. However, I have NO complaints about the content of the story as it totally immerses you in the time period and mood of the era. Ross makes Turf more than just gangsters vs. aliens vs. vampires, giving readers more than their money’s worth with a rich story that we don’t get to see too often.
Tommy Lee Edwards’s visuals help bring this thing full circle and fully compliment Ross’s script from start to finish. Though I was a bit confused during the explosion on the alien ship, as I really couldn’t tell what was going on, I will say that the mob hit in the hotel and the fight in the barber shop were two of my favorite parts of the story. There is something that’s going to annoy me a bit, and that’s the fact that it seems like Edwards has chosen to draw the vampires with the fangs outside of their mouth, and that has always been a put off to me regardless of how good the artist is. Other than that, I’m just hoping that in the future issues the artwork isn’t marred by too many captions again.
With so much story told in this issue, there are still many questions to be answered, and I’m hoping we get more alien action in the second issue. So if you’re looking for a distraction from the super hero comics I’d say give Turf a shot and see where it takes you, because for Ross’s first comic, I’d say he’s made a solid first impression with this book here.
Infinite Speech
infinitespeech@comicattack.
That was really interesting…until the aliens. Vampires and a period setting and aliens…that’s just too much. I mean, where’s the focus? I could do without the aliens.
Loved TURF, so much, actually, that we talked to Image about doing an exclusive edition of the book, with a Steranko Cover. If anyone is interested, here it is:
http://comicsandcards.net/wordpress/online-shop/?view_type=grid&product_search=turf
Well the story seems focused for now and it’s not just all over the place Kris. Hopefully it stays that way throughout the series but I do see where you’re coming from and it did give me pause until I read it.
A Steranko cover would be a great exclusive!
Speech- Somehow dude, you manage to find books I’ve never heard of but sound awesome. 😀
It’s 2.99 well spent Billy
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