The Undoubtables GN
Markosia 2014
Story & Letters by: Wes Locher
Art by: Emre Ozdamarlar
Colours by: Kefas Armando
Reviewer: Steven Leitman
Summary: It’s Ocean’s Eleven meets Payback when career thief Spencer “Spade” Shelton, finds himself back in New York City one year after escaping prison. When the heist he’s planned goes wrong, his mobster victims come after Spade and his crew for both their money and their vengeance!Tipped off to Spade’s presence, the clock is ticking as N.Y.P.D. detectives race to stop The Undoubtables from pulling their next big bank robbery. The thieves must stay one step ahead of the law while doing their best to stay alive.
Review: It’s been awhile since I’ve read a good old fashioned crime book and this one centers around a fella who goes by the nickname Spade. He’s a career criminal who specializes in Bank Robberies and after a while he got caught and sent to a seemingly secure prison where no one has escaped before. Of course it seems that it’s because no one ever really tried before, so Spade does the unthinkable and actually manages to escape to freedom.
So the concept here is pretty straight forward, a career criminal gets out of jail and has no money and needs to set himself back up with everything he needs. So he puts together a team of old “friends” and they get to work collecting debts that are owed to him. It all sounds fairly typical on the surface but as the story unfolds and you learn more about Spade, thanks to a very over eager NYPD Detective, you begin to see he has his sense of honor and you begin to like him. He’s got the proverbial bag of tricks up his sleeve and it’s nice we don’t get to see how he does them. There’s a lot to be said for leaving it to the readers imagination, so I applaud Wes on that.
This is a kind of lovable scamp situation and the characterization is pretty darn good. All the members of his crew have distinct and varied personalities though I’m not terribly keen on his using playing cards as codenames. But it makes sense since they don’t need to give their real names in public so they can go further without being identified. But it still seems too comic bookish for me, but then I could be a tad jaded because I still can definitely see the benefits here. To me, it has this blending of the shows Breakout Kings mixed with the Usual Suspects to create this oddly fun and entertaining world.
I feel a bit mixed on the interior artwork. On one hand it is very independent looking with a fairly new artist finding their footing and on the other it seems to fit the subject matter. Granted it could be drawn with more detail and more realistic looking panels, inside the car for instance felt really amateurish and left me wondering what kind of car looks like that? Sometimes the perspective is good other times it’s lacking leaving room for improvement and growth in Emre’s art.
Overall this was a highly entertaining read and since it’s a complete 96 page story, you get it all in one sitting and can enjoy it from start to finish. I’d say give it a look see, it might just surprise you.
Markosia 2014
Story & Letters by: Wes Locher
Art by: Emre Ozdamarlar
Colours by: Kefas Armando
Reviewer: Steven Leitman
Summary: It’s Ocean’s Eleven meets Payback when career thief Spencer “Spade” Shelton, finds himself back in New York City one year after escaping prison. When the heist he’s planned goes wrong, his mobster victims come after Spade and his crew for both their money and their vengeance!Tipped off to Spade’s presence, the clock is ticking as N.Y.P.D. detectives race to stop The Undoubtables from pulling their next big bank robbery. The thieves must stay one step ahead of the law while doing their best to stay alive.
Review: It’s been awhile since I’ve read a good old fashioned crime book and this one centers around a fella who goes by the nickname Spade. He’s a career criminal who specializes in Bank Robberies and after a while he got caught and sent to a seemingly secure prison where no one has escaped before. Of course it seems that it’s because no one ever really tried before, so Spade does the unthinkable and actually manages to escape to freedom.
So the concept here is pretty straight forward, a career criminal gets out of jail and has no money and needs to set himself back up with everything he needs. So he puts together a team of old “friends” and they get to work collecting debts that are owed to him. It all sounds fairly typical on the surface but as the story unfolds and you learn more about Spade, thanks to a very over eager NYPD Detective, you begin to see he has his sense of honor and you begin to like him. He’s got the proverbial bag of tricks up his sleeve and it’s nice we don’t get to see how he does them. There’s a lot to be said for leaving it to the readers imagination, so I applaud Wes on that.
This is a kind of lovable scamp situation and the characterization is pretty darn good. All the members of his crew have distinct and varied personalities though I’m not terribly keen on his using playing cards as codenames. But it makes sense since they don’t need to give their real names in public so they can go further without being identified. But it still seems too comic bookish for me, but then I could be a tad jaded because I still can definitely see the benefits here. To me, it has this blending of the shows Breakout Kings mixed with the Usual Suspects to create this oddly fun and entertaining world.
I feel a bit mixed on the interior artwork. On one hand it is very independent looking with a fairly new artist finding their footing and on the other it seems to fit the subject matter. Granted it could be drawn with more detail and more realistic looking panels, inside the car for instance felt really amateurish and left me wondering what kind of car looks like that? Sometimes the perspective is good other times it’s lacking leaving room for improvement and growth in Emre’s art.
Overall this was a highly entertaining read and since it’s a complete 96 page story, you get it all in one sitting and can enjoy it from start to finish. I’d say give it a look see, it might just surprise you.