Written by Mark Bertolini
Art by Rob Croonenborghs
Published by Action Lab/Danger Zone
The story of Bonnie and Clyde is a classic; a duo madly in love robbing banks all over the country only to meet their untimely demise at the hands of the police. Scum of the Earth takes that premise and throws caution totally to the wind. What we have here is a couple that are indeed madly in love, but instead of a bank heisting crime spree we’re looking at two cold-blooded psychopaths on a countrywide killing spree leaving nothing but blood and dead bodies in their wake.
Mark Bertolini has craft a story not unlike Bonnie and Clyde, but he’s also mixed a healthy dose of Pulp Fiction in with it. We’re still not sure who this crazy couple is or what they’re up to, but we do know one thing; they’re dangerous and they’re out of control. This story is absolutely brutal but fun. I wish after two issues we had a little more to go on plot-wise but I’m sure answers will be revealed to us in time. Until then, we’re given a hyper-violent story without a ton of dialogue and no real answers as to what’s going on. We DO know that someone is on the heels of our couple, but we don’t know who it is or why!
The art in this book is good, but in my opinion not great. Not to say that there aren’t high points, though. The line work is really good, but the art as a whole falls a little short with some of the coloring. Some of it is really well done, but I noticed that some of the fill-in coloring wasn’t done really cleanly. I think it was done intentionally to add a layer of grit to the story, but it fell flat for me at times.
This book is a lot of fun, but it’s something I definitely have to be in the mood for to read. It’s hyper-violent (it even says so on the cover), so you definitely shouldn’t give it to someone underage to read! Other than that, it’s something that isn’t meant to be taken too seriously from a certain standpoint. It’s violent fun in the same way Grand Theft Auto is. (A series I absolutely love by the way!) If you’re in to that sort of thing, Scum of the Earth is something you definitely need to check out!
3 out of 5 nerds
Irwin Fletcher
I'm an LA journalist who really lives for his profession. I have also published work as Jane Doe in various mags and newspapers across the globe. I normally write articles that can cause trouble but now I write for FTN because Nerds are never angry, so I feel safe.
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