Cherry Blackbird #1

Cherry Blackbird #1

Black Caravan/Scout Comics 2021

By Joseph Schmalke

Lettered by Joel Rodriguez

Note: Title is for 18+ audiences and comes polybagged.

Rockstar Cherry Blackbird sold her soul for fame. Now at the age of 26, time is running short. The day she turns 27, she'll be dragged to Hell. But Cherry is not one to go quietly. The Devil tasks her with collecting seven demonic souls that have escaped the Abyss. If she can do this before her next birthday, she'll be released from her infernal pact and spared eternal damnation. Heaven help anyone who gets in her way!

The opening here is beyond anything you will ever expect to see. Bloody brilliant if you ask me and very open minded to boot though not going as planned that’s for sure. I was kind of stunned if I’m going to be honest, kind of aroused and genuinely terrified a bit as well and this is pretty much what Cherry was feeling I’m sure. Now once we get past that things really get a tad more routine which kind of made me a bit sad after the opening number. I mean gimme something that spectacular to pull me in then a load of characterisation which is good too.

I do like the way that this is being told. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented exceptionally well. The character development that we see is phenomenal thanks to how we see the dialogue, the character interaction and how we see them act and react to the situations and circumstances they encounter that helps flesh them out as the individuals that they are. The pacing is superb and as it takes us through the pages revealing the story and introducing us to the world and it’s denizens we’re left wondering when we’ll see something like the opening again.

I love seeing how this is being structured and how we see the layers beginning to emerge and grow. The little bits that we see are where the stuff that forms the main arc come from and while all of them won’t go anywhere they do add extra depth and complexity to what we see and Joseph really nails them. The way that we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is achieved exceptionally well.

Love, love, love the interiors here. I have to say that opening and every single moment after leaves such an impression upon the reader. The linework is clean, crisp and strong and how we see the varying weights and techniques being utilised to create this wonderful detail work is amazing. So backgrounds could be utilised better and i’m gonna lie or sugar coat how much the blank spaces feels like wasted opportunity to me. We do see some nice depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope of the story is rendered nicely. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a smart eye for storytelling. The colour work is nicely rendered as well. How we see the colour blocking is really well done and how we see the colour packed in like a tattoo artist would do has its own charm as well. The various hues and tones within the colours that we see being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work are rendered extremely well.

​

A lot different than I thought this would be. I’m certainly not going to complain about that because I love being surprised, shocked and taken for a ride the likes of which we don’t see every day. It is a great take on a classic idea and Joseph has managed to make this original and unique to him and he’s sharing this vision with us, thankfully. Trust me these Black Caravan Imprint books from Scout are some of the most cutting edge stories you are going to find on stands today.