Punchline and the Vaude-Villains #1

Punchline and the Vaude-Villains #1

Hero Tomorrow Comics 2021

Created, Written, Layouts, Coloured & Lettered by Ted Sikora

Layouts & Illustrated by Donny Hadiwidjaja

Drayton Hayes is a heavyweight boxer who was kidnapped by a bizarre troupe of scoundrels calling themselves the Vaude-Villains, then transformed into the super-powered murderous clown Punchline. Punchline is about to throw-down with the main superhero from the Hero Tomorrow Comics universe, Apama, in a series that turns on a dime from horror to comedy to supernatural!

When Ted created all these characters I fell in love with them. He created a world where the clowns are deadly, interesting and in their own warped way have become what the Suicide Squad should aspire to be. Sure they are bad guys but they take down mob families while stealing so ya the dynamic is as messed up as their personalities have been made to be. I do wonder if some day their original personalities might resurface because that’s the kind of drama that would be awesome to see play out. One of my favourite things about this issue is the way Nikki introduces her father to everyone and brings her mother into this as well. Talk about some wonderfully awkwardness, it really makes this opening engaging and intriguing as it pulls you further in like the rip tide at the beach.

I am a big fan of 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 perfectly. Just the overall way this is being told is amazing and it feels so simple and if you know anything something that appears simple is far from being that, it’s amazing difficult to achieve that effect. So kudos to Ted here on how he has been writing this. The character development is phenomenal! The dialogue, the interaction between characters and how they act and react to the situations and circumstances they encounter really flesh them out beautifully. The pacing is superb and as it takes us through the pages setting up where this is heading is stunning.

How we see this being structured and how the layers within the story are emerging and carrying on from the previous stories, which you don’t have to have read though you really should, is done extremely well. How everything works together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is perfectly achieved.

The interiors here are fantastic! The linework is great and the way we see the varying weights and techniques being utilised to create the detail work is stupendous. The sheer creativity and imagination is crazy good and it really lends itself to furthering the characterisation as well just being visually amazing. The way that we see backgrounds being utilised to enhance the moments as well as how they bring us depth perception, a sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the story is pretty brilliant. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a stellar eye for storytelling. The colour work is perfectly rendered as well. How we see the various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work is great to see. The creativity in the outfits is amplified by the colour work because this eye for colour and knowing how it can be utilised in ways that boggle the imagination is sensational.

This is a great read and for a myriad of reasons and that it ties into the Apama universe so well only makes it that much better. This is also new reader friendly so you can jump into this and fully understand what is going on though I highly recommend getting the trades for everything else because this is the universe you’ve been craving. This is just a reminder that you can create heroes and villains and have them live in a bright world where they don’t have to be all dark and brooding. Intelligently written with beautiful interiors these are clowns of crime that have made comics fun again.