There are rumors that one of the first stand-alone Star Wars
films will be an adventure featuring a young Han Solo. With all due respect to the Disney
braintrust...it's already been done by Jim McCann, Janet Lee and Chris
Sotomayor.
On March 6, Image Comics will release the first of a
four-issue series titled LOST VEGAS, by Eisner-Award winners Jim McCann and
Janet Lee. McCann and Lee have come a
long way in a fairly short time in their comics career, culminating in the
Eisner for Best Graphic Novel in 2011 for their Steampunk fairy tale RETURN OF THE DAPPER MEN.
McCann, who has worked in television production and previously worked in
the marketing department for Marvel, has developed into a very deft
storyteller. His current series, also
from Image, is MIND THE GAP, an Hitchcockian mystery with supernatural
overtones, and has become one of the best cliffhangers around. Lee is a fantastic artist known for her
adaptations of Jane Austen books for Marvel, and recently released WONDERLAND
ALPHABET. Her award-winning DAPPER MEN
art was done in decoupage, a style all but nonexistent in sequential art. McCann and Lee are old friends, and their
collaborations reflect that.
However, with LOST VEGAS, McCann and Lee take readers in a
very different direction from DAPPER MEN.
McCann has combined his love of heist and space adventure films to
answer a simple question: instead of owing the casino money, what if when you
lost everything you lost...yourself?
Con artist Roland does just that. When he loses everything in a card game, he
becomes the property of the LOST VEGAS interstellar casino. After a few years, he believes he has finally
figured out the perfect way to escape, and maybe even turn the tables on the
casino owners and exact a little revenge.
With the assistance of an anthropomorphized blob of black goo known as
"ink," Roland plans an escape for himself that has a simple premise:
bankrupt the casino.
But that's where everything starts to go wrong when Roland
becomes infatuated with the casino's main entertainment draw, the dancer
Kaylex. Thinking of Kaylex gets Roland
distracted, and in trouble. His friends
don't know he's in trouble, and he's suddenly in more trouble than he bargained
for. (Did I mention Roland only has 24
hours to pull off the plan?)
LOST VEGAS is a typical Jim McCann story: the first few
pages are a little peculiar, and once or twice you might wonder where the story
is going, until you realize out of nowhere you've reached the end of the
issue...and you're ticked! McCann is a
wonderful storyteller and flexes his cliffhanger muscles perfectly. I didn't realize until the very end of issue
#1 that he had completely sucked me in, and I don't mind admitting that waiting
for issue #2 is going to be frustrating.
Along with McCann's great story is beautiful art from Lee,
with colors provided by Chris Sotomayor.
For anyone who really doesn't understand what a good colorist can mean
to an artist and book, pay special attention to LOST VEGAS. Lee and Sotomayor's two page spread
introducing Kaylex is just stunning, and probably my favorite image from the
first issue. Lee may only have a few
titles under her sequential-art belt, but she is showing once again that her
Eisner was well-earned. Her style is
perfectly suited to alien design, and Sotomayor's colors complement her designs
beautifully.
LOST VEGAS #1 arrives Wednesday, featuring dual covers by Lee and
Dan McDaid (artist of a previous Image series, JERSEY GODS), and continues for
the following three months. Call or
email us before to guarantee your copy.
Cheers,
J. R.
(Send me an email to jr [at] gameoncomics [dot] com to reserve yourself a copy!)
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