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Are you recently deceased? Respiratorily challenged? Concerned your vital humors are neither vital nor especially humorous anymore? FEAR NOT! Because Denny Little, occultist and medium to the star(s) is here and he has solved the single biggest problem in human history;
Death.
The thing is though, Denny’s solved it from an odd angle. He’s worked out a means of basically exorcising a human soul and dropping a newcomer in. So the dead can come back but we can’t live forever. Until we die, when for a reasonable price, Denny will bring us back. Denny is, after all, a businessman. One who, if he doesn’t deliver for a local mob family soon, is going to need his own services…
Ryan Ferrier‘s name is an instant buy. His combination of wit, invention, magnificent depravity (The D4ve trilogy about the robots who take over from us and find whole new ways to screw up is especially lovely) and heart makes every book with his name on it a winner. This is no exception.
In the space of the first issue we see three sides of Denny. With the gang boss who wants his dad back he’s fast talking, plausible and out of his depth. With his secretary he’s arrogant, callous and almost uses her to get out of the jam he’s in with the gangster. Then, when a client (Who, wonderfully, isn’t bad news the moment she walks in), appears, we see the real Denny. Besotted with the wonderfully named Henrietta Solis, we see the man he thinks he is all the time; honest, caring, professional. The moment we do, you realize Ryan has walked us around the entire cast like this, showing us them not as characters but as people. Some of them dead people admittedly, but this is a book where everyone has a corner or two knocked off and everyone feels refreshingly real and, dare I say it, lived in.
That’s further emphasized by Ryan’s typically excellent, naturalistic lettering and the superb art by George Kambadais. The script shifts gear as fast as Denny changes stories, taking in an informercial, film noir, comedy and horror with equal lightness of touch. The art feels playful, and that makes the moments where the book lands a really solid punch all the more effective. And, as you can see by Denny’s face, the book lands quite a few of those.
Witty, inventive, light on its feet and with a roll of holy quarters in its fist this is the best work yet from one of the best writers in the field and a wonderful introduction to George Kambadais’ exuberant, fast-talking and clean lined work.
If you want the first issue of I Can Sell You A Body, and you do, it’s out now. And so is the second issue if schedules run correctly! Click through to find the link to your local comic shop. Mine as ever, is here.