Silver
Written & illustrated by Stephan Franck
Dark Planet Comics
Stephan Franck is a very charming guy. He lured me over to his table at HeroesCon like a veteran carnival barker with a persuasive elevator pitch for his project. Why, yes, that does sound like the sort of book I like.. and before I knew it I was handing over $12.99 (he was nice enough to draw a sketch inside the book, too). Fortunately he's also a very good storyteller, so it was money well spent.
Silver is set in the pulp era of the 1930s and features a witty thief and con man named James Finnigan, a criminal with a special fondness for silver. The first of the three issues collected here centers around an elaborate heist. The fact that it is a charity auction of silver pieces from the private collection of Jonathan and Mina Harker is the first clue that this may have elements beyond a stock crime noir. Finnigan's con succeeds, but he barely makes it out of the mansion with the loot. Purely by accident the haul includes an old journal and an antique silver ingot.
Finnigan thinks the journal is fiction at first, but then he takes a closer look at the ingot. His crew was planning to retire after this job, but he lost the key to the safe deposit box that held all of their stock ownership papers while escaping from the heist. The journal offers an alternative to recoup their losses: a huge stash of silver. He goes to visit Van Helsing's granddaughter, a woman named Sledge. He finds a warrior armed with a katana (for chopping off vampire's heads). Even after seeing her in action he has trouble accepting the existence of vampires.
But he gets her to join his new crew, which also includes an actor (to play the lead role in the con) and a forger. They catch a boat headed for Romania, the location of Count Dracula's castle, where the treasure awaits, "in a castle full of vampires" (as Sledge puts it). They have one other wild card, a kid named Tao who can sometimes see the future.
It's quite a setup, marrying Bram Stoker's universe with crime noir. The genre summary on the back cover sums it up well: Pulp Adventure Supernatural. Franck's black and white art is dynamic, and well suited to the story. I can hardly wait to see what happens next. The print collection will be listed in the September issue of Previews. But it can be downloaded right now on Comixology for $5.99.
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