One Coin Reads 6: The Dead Hand, by Kyle Higgins and Stephen Mooney

The Dead Hand, by Kyle Higgins and Stephen Mooney

2019

Continuing my dive into steeply marked down trades on comics, I picked up The Dead Hand for ¥458. The cover looked like something I'd like. It has some of the vibes from Steve Epting back on the Winter Soldier era Captain America and I enjoy some Cold War genre work.

It's a nice cover. In retrospect, it doesn't really communicate any of the book plot 

My usual complaints for Image books are that nothing much happens in the first trade until the last couple pages, and the art is Paul Pope Lite, so going in, that's the stereotype I want to get past. I'm happy to say this book is nothing like that. I had some issues with the book overall, but there is more to praise with this than criticize.

The strongest point is the writing and pacing. I have heard Higgins name before, but I don't know him and this is the first time reading any of his work. The Dead Hand collects issues one to six of a series, and Higgins does his best to have a hook drop on the last page of each issue, emphasizing it by making it a splash page. If I'm reading genre work like this, I want this pulpy ratcheting up of the story each issue. This book has pacing very much in line with The Walking Dead in that way. 

Most of the characters are introduced through collage spreads or splashes. It's not story-telling, but it tells a story

It's difficult to discuss the book without spoiling the story, but I'll spoil the first issue of the book for discussion's sake since it's the setting of the rest of the book. We're introduced to an American ex-military ops guy working as a cop in a small town. Some unusual stuff goes down and the first issue ends with the reveal that the town is in Siberia. It's an intriguing set up, and the first half of the book aims to set up situations for later in the book to resolve. If that sounds interesting, you'll probably enjoy the book. As the I got toward the end of the book and fewer and fewer pages were left, I started to get this feeling that the book would be leaving off on a cliffhanger for the next trade. When I finally got to the end, I was very pleasantly surprised:

The story ended. It was an open ending that could be continued, but it ended. It was such a nice feeling. The book has a "1" in the sub-title, and a "1" on the spine, so I was expecting there would be an issue seven out in the wild, but this is self-contained. I'm guessing the intent is to continue if it sold gangbusters, but make it its own story. That's great. 

That said, it wrapped up much more abruptly than was satisfying. The pace leading up to the sixth issue was spaced out, decompressed storytelling. The final issue crams the resolution together and yada yadas itself to the end. If I were the editor, I probably would have wanted issue six to be double sized or compress the opening of the book to make space in the last two issues for the conclusion. Overall, the writing was well-done though; it was solid genre writing with a solid premise.

Jordie Bellaire on colors makes things better

The art is really hit and miss for me. Some of it is good, Mooney does grounded spy action pretty well. The thing is, it's not consistent. Sometimes, he is drawing freely, and there is artistic looseness. Other times though, he's so reliant on photographs that the work moves into Greg Land photo-collage territory. Characters don't interact with the backgrounds much less each other. I liked the loose work better.

Mooney has an ambition to do realistic art, and maybe he's going to get there in a satisfying way, but he's not quite there on this project. The art ranges from solid to janky. I like Michael Lark's work so much, but nobody starts their comics career making work like that. That seems to be where Mooney is headed, and power to him if and when he does it.

Things that rubbed me wrong in this pic: her pose, the cop's elbow, the family photo to establish family relations shows the daughter at her current age rather than something showing family history, no curtains or blinds, the table and the floor... that's nit-picky, but it's not immersive and in a less "real" image, these problems would disappear

There's some of the Photoshop image duplication as well. Lots of folks have come to terms with this as a creative comics technique in the 21st century, but it's never going to be anything other than irritating in a book to me. Just get a light box and trace your own work.

Did Higgins tell Mooney to use the same face four times? Is that the artist's choice?

This is a genre product, and it was successful at what it was trying to do. I'll check another Kyle Higgins book in the future if the price is right. Mooney isn't to my tastes. 

It was a real treat to get an Image trade that wasn't the first part of an epic you'll never finish reading.