Ringside, Vol. 3: Shoot

Ringside #3

by Joe Keatinge, Nick Barber (Illustrator)

Former professional wrestler Danny Knossos has given up everything to save the life of his beloved, only to have his reality come shattering down around him. Now a broken man, Danny rebuilds who he is from the inside out as he goes down a road from which he may never return. When he loses everything, the real horror begins as The Minotaur rises again.

The final chapter of the heartfelt ensemble drama by superstar creators JOE KEATINGE and NICK BARBER concludes here.

Collects issues 11 through 15.

Genres: Graphic Novels, Comics

136 pages, Paperback

First published June 6, 2018

About the author

Likes Wu Tang Clan.

Reviews

[Marten Peters · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought this series was going somewhere but the sudden ending proved me wrong. this could have been a solid 4 as a penultimate volume. But as a finale, great ideas and a good buildup are cut short.

[Yani · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is absolutely not where I saw this series going...

Ringside has been an odd ride. With it's very graphic/hard visual style and the incidental homosexuality of it's protagonists and the subject of wrestling, which I could not be any less interested in.

And yet, I enjoyed my time in this world. Did the art style get a little too much by the end of the last book, yes indeed it did, and some characters were almost unrecognisable from page to page, let alone from one book to another. Did the story take a severe right turn and introduce a new future timeline/current timeline mechanic for the last volume that it could have possibly laid across the entire series, yes, yes it did. Did I wish there was at least one successful gay relationship shown across the entire series, yes, yes I do.

Do I wish things had ended differently, yes. And I wish things had been a little clearer.

But it's still a good series. There are a lot of good ideas here, the writing is, for the most part, solid (future timeline notwithstanding), and when the art works, it's beautiful and graphic.

[Shaun Stanley · Rating 2 out of 5]

The series wraps up with a third volume. I wouldn’t consider each volume as an arc as the whole series is basically one story. The comics tells 3 stories that end up all kind of tying in to each other by the end. The series was okay, but I will probably forget all about in a couple of months because there is nothing that really stands out. I think a comic series that focuses on the business of wrestling would make a very interesting long term comic but this series focused on more on aspects of wrestlers outside of their wrestling careers. There is some wrestling business in the books and those were the best parts. The biggest problem with this book is the art. It is so incredibly plain. Wrestling is bigger than life and capture that, you need a much more detailed artist.

[Quentin Wallace · Rating 3 out of 5]

I tend to agree with most other reviews I've read of this volume in that it the ending didn't really live up to the series. I'm not sure if this was a planned ending or the series just needed to be wrapped up, but it felt rushed. The final issue actually could have been a great ending, but there wasn't enough build up leading to it.

Overall this was a decent comic book noir and as I've stated in previous reviews it was very original and not the type of comic you see very often, particularly in the United States. It felt slow and plodding at times but I think at least some of that was just due to the slow burn type of story that is more common in novels rather than graphic literature.

Overall this wasn't bad, but I really think it had potential it never reached.

[Paul Allard · Rating 2 out of 5]

Finale to this series - undecided what to make of it

I’ve not been over-enthusiastic about this series based in the world of wrestling, a subject of little interest to me. Admittedly it’s more popular in the US than here. This volume is very much about the different characters but the simple artwork didn’t help me to keep track of who is who. A relatively simple plot moves along but, in the end, I didn’t find much of interest. Shame really.

[Alex Sarll]

"I'll tell you one thing for sure, kiddo. For guys like me? Our world's long over. We ain't nothin' but a death-rattle." At first I took this series about the high price and dirty reality of wrestling as a comment on the same as applied to comics. Here at the end, I realise even that was just an example of the high price and dirty reality of life, and how we still keep coming back because it's the only way we know.

[Jesse A · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well that was kind of a waste of a whole series and intriguing premise.