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EVENING SHIFTby Chris Gumprich and Dwight Williams
($3.95 ppd from
Arctic Star Studios; distributed by FM International)
Reviewed by Monsu PokEvening Shift is about Jack Douglas, a “coder”, or programmer, who’s a loner and frequents a bar nearby to drown his troubles. Got it? Good, because on his first night, he has to talk to a stranger and becomes an ultimate part of her life.
While Frank Miller’s
Sin City took Raymond Chandler and stretched it to the point of caricature, Chris Gumprich tries to retain some of the humanism of the old detective novels. For the most part, it works. There are a few scattered clichés, but it’s hard to avoid given the genre. There are no punches pulled in the depravity of the tale that is told by the sad stranger, and the writer also shows a true empathy for the characters he’s created.
Dwight Williams’ artwork is just too well lit for the necessary mood of the story. At times, there isn’t enough contrast to emphasize the proper objects in the panels. Williams’ pacing in the panels is quite competent, but the lack of characters' facial expressions may make such things go unnoticed. At worst, they can be quite distracting as in the final panel: the protagonist looks quite cross-eyed.
Evening Shift is looking to be a new, old-mainstream type of comic genre, that of crime comics. All the more power to it, but it’s not quite ready for primetime.
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