By
Leroy Douresseaux
December 21, 2007 - 21:14
|
CHISAI: KARMA
APPROBATION COMICS
WRITER: Bart A. Thompson
ARTISTS: Steve Fox, John Samaritan & Efrain Carrasquillo, Lynx Studio, Luis Ruben Rivera & Juan Castro, and Andres Guinaldo & Efrain Carrasquillo
COVER: Garrie Gastonny
48 pp., B&W, $3.50
To settle old scores and indeed score some gory revenge, 18-year-old Shy Stevens became the masked vigilante, ChiSai. ChiSai: Karma finds Shy racing headlong into settling a score with savvy kingpin, Jeno Jacobs, but first Shy must go through Jacobs’ blade-wielding killer, Gertrude. Jeno’s trump card: he’s holding Shy’s man, Richard Andrews, and her daughter, Hope, hostage.
THE LOWDOWN: ChiSai is something like a cross between Marvel Comics’ Elektra and DC Comics’ The Midnighter. Even in this 48-page story, it’s hard to get a handle on an in depth look at her character, although the story is clear that Shy is a stubborn, determined, young woman. Writer Bart A. Thompson stumbles a bit early in ChiSai: Karma with awkward dialogue, but once he begins to ease up on the dialogue, the story flows better, as he figures out when to “speak” and when to remain “silent.”
There are five different artists or art teams here, and that’s something of a problem, especially when Steve Fox gives way to John Samaritan & Efrain Carrasquillo at pages seven and eight. It’s so jarring, not simply for having two radically different visual styles, but because the transition is within the same scene and the next artists changed a few of the characters’ appearance. If not for Thompson’s simply and straight-forward plot, this sudden change in style would have been a disaster. For the most part, the reader can follow the story even with the different artists.
POSSIBLE AUDIENCE: Readers who enjoy bad girls like Elektra and maximum butt kickers like The Midnighter may also enjoy this killer chick.
B
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