Numbers: A Tale of Shades and Angels

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Numbers: A Tale of Shades and Angels
By Leroy Douresseaux
January 23, 2004 - 14:31

Candle Light Press
Writer(s): John Ira Thomas
Penciller(s): Jeremy Smith
ISBN: 0-9743147-0-6
$14.95, black and white

Eddie Foote is the head of Numbers in Freedom City, Texas, and that has earned him a date with death. A psychopathic killer who specializes in killing criminals, the Fearsome Shade, has wagered that he will kill Foote. Now, Eddie has to convince the Shade's friend, The Night Angel, to save his life.

That's the bare bones plot of NUMBERS: A TALE OF SHADES AND ANGELS, a graphic novel from Candle Light Press (www.candlelightpress.com). Writer John Ira Thomas' plot is fairly straightforward, though his script is bit dense in a few places. However, he has a good ear for dialogue that reads like comfortable and natural speech. There's a rhythmic patter to the way characters speak to one anther, and like Alan Moore, Thomas tells the story almost solely through character speech with very few captions. His characters are also utterly delightful and intriguing.

The pleasant surprise of this graphic novel is artist Jeremy Smith, whose style looks like early Steve Rude and mid-80's Matt Wagner. The quality of his black and white art is extraordinarily high. He uses lighting, perspective, and abstraction to such good effect that he puts most digital production in Marvel and DC books to shame. With such an involved script and such complex art, Numbers is more graphic novel than 98% of the books on the market and a great value at $14.95.
[DRECK, DULL, READABLE, VERY GOOD, EXCELLENT]