Peter Lorre

This volume includes five episodes of the miniseries originally published in 2012. It contains a complete history of all independent continuity. There is no need to read Volume 1 Iron Prometheus to appreciate or understand it. The screenplay is by Mike Mignola and John Arcudi, illustrations Tonci Zonjic, and setting colors by Dave Stewart.

A couple out of a movie and went home on foot. They come to see a Buster Keaton film, "The love plumber" in 1932. In a deserted street, they discover a uniformed officer scalped alive and even conscious, attached to a lamppost. Then they worry about his condition, they are attacked by a horde of Indian feet for some, for others riding in folk dress (with war paint, feathers adornment). The next day, two police detectives investigating up by examining the corpses; they are challenged by Cindy Tynan, a journalist. By asking questions about victims, she will interview Harry McTell an auto mechanic who seems to understand the shady deals being hatched in the neighborhood. It will eventually bring attention to her and have her salvation to the providential intervention of an individual's leather jacket adorned with a clamp Lobster and wearing a cap and sunglasses masking her face.

With this story, Mignola and Arcudi pay homage to pulp magazines, the stories cheap 1930 with more or less masked vigilante making speedy justice among the lowland towns by killing alien criminals (the generation preceding superheroes). Here Lobster Johnson owes more to Doc Savage as The Shadow. It has a secret hideout in the city (with its own aircraft, but this is not an autogyro), and a team of people who are devoted to him body and soul. The appearance of the Indians shoddy troupe evokes the methods criminals to the strong visual identity, using subterfuge to terrorize the population. It has a normal strength, high agility and fierce determination. The reader will not learn his true identity, and will not see her face uncovered. It remains an enigma from beginning to end.

Throughout the pages, the character in the most developed personality becomes Cindy Tynan (on the side of "good") that avoids some act to captive defenseless, to affirm in as and a strong character. As against the side of the "bad guys", the reader is at the party. The boss of the underworld (Arnie Wald) has enough personality to each of its interventions become tasty. He is assisted by an exotic couple: (! Asian woman, ah the unfathomable mysteries of the orient) and Raimund Kamala (good German whose appearance will evoke memories of the readers of the BPRD series) Diesel. But the overwhelming success is the second Arnie Wald: Mister ISOG. Obviously Mignola (big fan of genre cinema as he had already proven with Hellboy in House of the living dead) wanted to pay tribute to Peter Lorre (M The cursed, The Maltese Falcon, Arsenic & Old Lace and well others). And the result is as convincing for the role he has been assigned for the visual interpretation of Tonci Zonjic. It's a real pleasure to find this head and these traitor and venomous cowardly ways.

Tonci Zonjic became known by illustrating a complete story Who is Jake Ellis. It uses a rather realistic style, simplified outlines, very pleasing to the eye. Early on, the reader gets the impression of being in the streets of New York in the 1930s, slightly weathered by time distance, already almost legendary. The subdued colors of Dave Stewart accentuate this impression of movement in places already recognized as legendary by the time passing. Each place has characteristics that make it unique, with a good mix for the boxes never give the impression of being overcrowded. Rendering faces sometimes evokes Edgar P. Jacobs, with more rounded contours and slightly larger drawings (on average between 4-6 cases per page). Zonjic with disconcerting ease capture the essence of each scene. When the player walks on the deck of a steamer, he contemplates Kamala Diestel in swimsuit on a deck taking the sun, with the ocean in the background, it is both the universal image ( almost generic) for this and both made a unique vision due to the lady haircut, texture of wooden deckchair, clothing walkers on the bridge. Obviously Zonjic respects the tone of stamped series "Hellboy" using copious black solid areas during night sequences, without turning them into abstract geometric surfaces. The repeated character of BPRP series exudes precisely the same impression that the version of Guy Davis. Facial expressions are relevant without being exaggerated. And Peter Lorre exudes an irresistible charm poisonous.

At the end of reading this story, the reader finds that it is only a good series B: Mignola, Arcudi and Zonjic revisit masterfully all codes of pulps, but without bringing anything innovative without Another objective that a story entertaining, without particular comment. If there has a specific comment: the declaration of love to the characters played by Peter Lorre. If you've never been impressed by this actor, this volume deserves 4 stars. If he has marked your imagination, the quality of this tribute deserves 5 stars.