The Book I Think You Should Buy:
Blue Estate Vol. 2
by Viktor Kalvachev, Andrew Osborne, Toby Cypress, Nathan Fox, Tomm Coker, Paul Maybury, Andrew Robinson, and Marley Zarcone; Image, $12.99
Blue Estate is one of the cooler comics on the stand. It is written by Viktor Kalvachev and Andrew Osborne, and Kalvachev provides some of the art, and directs the work of his massive art team. Take a moment to look at the list of artists on this book – Cypress, Fox, Coker, Maybury, Robinson, and Zarcone. That’s a pretty impressive list.
It is common for an issue of this comic to have three or four artists drawing it, and it’s become a bit of a game to try to figure out who has which page. Actually, because of the consistent colouring of the book, and the level of Kalvachev’s control, that can be harder than one would think. Sure, artists like Coker and Cypress are easier to guess than the others, but the shift in styles is handled seamlessly.
Storywise, Blue Estate is pretty interesting. It tells a very complex story involving Russian and Italian gangsters, Hollywood action stars, their wives and lovers, private investigators, drug runners, police, and assassins who also volunteer as sponsors at Alcoholics Anonymous. As complicated as the plot can be, the book reads fairly easily, and is pretty enjoyable.
I recommend getting the first trade alongside this one, if you haven’t been reading this series, as this volume really won’t stand well on its own. It’s worth it.
So what would you buy this week Were Money No Object?
