Minky Woodcock The Girl Who Electrified Tesla #3

Minky Woodcock The Girl Who Electrified Tesla #3

Titan Comics/Hard Case True Crime 2021

By Cynthia Von Buhler

Lettered by Jim Campbell

This series is rated Adults Only

DISCLAIMER: graphic sexuality

Private Investigator Minky Woodcock becomes involved in an investigation of maverick genius Nikola Tesla, and discovers a horrifying conspiracy involving corrupt politicians, Nazis and Tesla’s greatest adversary, Thomas Edison.

The more we see of the this story the more I love Minky! Now that we’ve seen her get close to Tesla and his murder she’s using those detective skills of hers to root out what she needs to know and do to find this Death Ray before anyone else can get their hands on it. Especially the Nazi’s! Cynthia continues to impress me mightily with her talent, skill and sheer chutzpah that translates right into Minky. This was a time when women were overlooked or dismissed and yet were able to use their smarts and wiles to do things men couldn’t dream of accomplishing. Personally it is stories like this that inspires me because it really takes some creativity and ingenuity to get this to work while demonstrating all the obstacles that they face along the way.

I am incredibly impressed with 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 impeccably presented. The character development is phenomenal and that’s thanks to how we see the dialogue, the character interaction as well as how they act and react to the situations and circumstances they encounter. The pacing is superb and as it takes us through the pages revealing the twists and turns along the way as it manages to pull us deeper and deeper into the story.

I am thrilled with the way we see this being structured and how the layers within the story continue to grow, evolve and strengthen. It is the side bits like seeing Josephine or her mother’s journal that work with the main arc but are separate and add this great depth and complexity to the story. How the detective work and her being able to cultivating new sources just enhances the main arc beautifully. How we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is achieved to perfection.

The interiors here are absolutely bloody stunning. The linework is exquisite and how we see the varying weights and techniques being utilised to create the detail work is magnificently rendered. I am thoroughly impressed that we can see the linework as delicate and fragile and creates such ethereal and beautiful imagery side by sid with these heavier lines that show strength and even bravery in their own distinct ways. That we see backgrounds so prevalent throughout and how they enhance the moments and bring us the depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the story is stupendous. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a supremely talented eye for storytelling. The colour work is sublime. How we see the various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work is simply gorgeous work.

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This really is just an amazing series so far. There is so much more than meets the eye happening here and it’s the depth and complexity in the story that we see which keeps us reading this over and over again to find things we’ve missed. It has this charm, verve and gravitas to it that just sets it apart from other books on stands right now. That we actually see detective work happening and with her friendship with Josephine making them something of partners in crime as it were add this excitement to an already interesting experience. This is so smartly written and beautifully illustrated as it breaks from what is considered the norm of the era to create a truly daring and unique reading experience.