2 Sinister Dexter books

Gunshark Vacation & Murder 101

I found these two books at £3 each in a remaindered bookshop, and after really enjoying the end of Abnett’s Heroes For Hire #1, I was pleased to snap them up.

I wasn’t so sure after the first several stories. Sinister & Dexter are a pair of hit-men for hire in a dark-future European city, unstoppable, flippant, loving their work. The writing is vigorously slangy and enthusiastically pulpy, with inventively elaborate language from Sinister and some clever character names (Kilopatra, the sawn-off Shogun, Bully Holiday and so on), but the stories, one or two 2000AD episodes each, are basic, and the art is drearily derivative, second- and third-rate Fabry knock-offs for the most part (and one fifth-rate Ian Gibson type). I found all this rather discouraging.

Then Simon Davis comes in on art and we get an 8-part story, and it moves to a completely different level. Davis can not only really draw, he creates mood and texture and atmosphere almost like a Sienkiewicz or McKean, he tells a story with vigour and freshness, and his characters look great, distinctive and memorable, with immensely expressive faces. I like him a lot, and Abnett opens up with a bigger story in another city (that’s the vacation) including a huge alligator-droid and more continuity than was the case earlier in the book. It gets very entertaining for the second half of this volume.

The second book starts with another lengthy Simon Davis story, with our heroes stuck with a young girl apprentice, who fucks things up spectacularly for them, until they are in the Maul, a wild area infested by armed cannibals, where they are attacked by another top assassin as the police send in fighter planes to bomb the fuck out of the whole area.

To my surprise, I enjoyed the next several shorts, with art by Paul Johnson and Julian Gibson, about as much – especially inventive little tales. I particularly liked one which is almost entirely the two of them killing time while waiting in their car. The only one I didn’t much care for was written in rhyme, an old device that I rarely enjoy.

The volume ends with a four-parter with crisp art by Steve Yeowell, who seems less suited to their grimy world than Davis in particular, but his work is always a pleasure.

I think in the end I like the way this fits with 2000AD. Despite its setting barely having any SF elements, zero in most stories, and the characters and stories being more like Travolta and Jackson in Pulp Fiction, its language, energy and of course copious gunplay seem very in keeping with the classic work of Wagner, Grant and Mills. I don’t know if I will be seeking out other full-price volumes, but I’ll at least keep my eyes open for more bargains.