(Zero spoiler review) 4.75/5
God damn, dialogue this good does something to me. I believe I finished the first issue and had to stop and pause for a moment. Maybe even retire into a dark room for a lie down and a little gentleman's alone time. Ok, all jokes aside, On of the main strengths of a Tarantino script is going to be the dialogue. The man has a knack for crafting interesting and engaging material that the vast majority of creators are either unwilling or unable to match. Add the western theme into the mix. A genre that is almost entirely forgotten about, I guess because its just a little bit too problematic for modern times. So, we have an outstanding, well written story, set within a criminally underused genre, and to top it off, we have the man himself, R.M Guerra on art. To say that his issues of Scalped where the very thing that kept that comic great, when Jason Aaron decided to start drinking the modern comics Kool Aid and proceeded to screw up his story. But two issue in, and I'm high as a kite on this rather special magnificence. Sadly, I believe it was issue three when Guerra disappeared from the book, appearing sporadically throughout its final four issues. Now, I can't say exactly what was behind this choice, although the same thing happened on Scalped, with him only drawing a fraction of the books final arcs. But this shit is seven issues long. Seven. Admittedly, they are longer issues, although I believe there were five artists in total who worked on this book by the time it was all said and done. Five! Who the fuck thought this was acceptable. When your someone like Tarantino, you're used to getting what you want. So why wasn't this book entirely done by Guerra? Celebrity antics aside, I would have thrown an unholy tantrum if I found out my book story turned into the town bike, with every artist nearby getting a ride on it. This really is just about the only thing that marred an exceptional reading experience. A reading experience sorely lacking from comics books. Its frank and at times graphic depiction of the deep south during slavery was, obviously confronting, but an amazingly well written little slice of non PC pie, that never became the white guilt stick to beat the majority of the readers of the story. You can ruminate on the machinations of the past, seeing the error or humanities ways in the past and hopefully learn from them without turning people into perpetual victims or villains, and craft a memorable and magnificent story while you're at it. I highly recommend Django Unchained, although will start a posthumous petition to get R.M Guerra to go back and draw the whole damned thing. 4.75/5
OmniBen.