Comic Review - Blue Hand Mojo: Hard Times Road

Writer: John Jennings
Illustrator: John Jennings
Publisher: Rosarium
Purchase Price: $2.99 via Peep Game Comix

It may sound weird coming from someone my age, but growing up I loved stories about hardboiled detectives. If you don't know what that is think of people like Dick Tracy and Dirty Harry, maybe even Luke Cage in the Heroes for Hire days. Usually they're a street smart person who acts as a detective and goes around solving cases. Somehow they became really intertwined with the Noir genre of films as they just meshed really well together. Hearing the premise of Blue Hand Mojo. The lead character is Frank "Half Dead" Johnson. A man left with half of his soul after a drunken night out. He seeks to reclaim it and along the way is wrapped up in various adventures. Alongside dangerous adventures he's also haunted by constant nightmares. The first thing that caught me off guard was that he's actually a magician.

The main story picks up in 1983 Chicago where Frank is awoken from his nightmare by a knock at the door. A young boy informs him that he has a visitor, one of his old mom friends name The Shark. He wishes for Frank to track down and defeat an unnamed evil that murdered all of his men. Eventually Frank tracks down the beat and learns what it is, but somehow the main story isn't the most interesting story.

The more interesting story is Frank's past. He made a deal with a demon named Scratch that would let him live forever, so it seemed, in return for half of his soul. Additionally he's had one of his hands replaced with a magical one that allows him to summon creatures of the night to aid in his fights. But, every time he uses that ability it takes more control of his body with the threat of it fully controlling him becoming more of a reality each time. This comes as a gift from Noir who represents black magic. Frank actually loves Noir because she represents the peace he can't seem to ever get. While the main story was great, I just found myself constantly wanting more about his past.

Let me tell you about the art. It's somewhere between Alex Ross' super detailed painting style and a classic manga. I wish there was a better way to describe it but I can't. If you took Alex Ross work and made it greyscale this would be the result. Black and white art can often be detailed and that's not shocking but this is another level. It's not just the characters and there clothes, but backdrops, skies and everything else. It must have taken an extreamly long time to illustrate.

Additionally the panel style can be a little staggering at first. It reads more like a book with illustrations along the side for majority of the pages. When it does use panels they're more abstract than the standard style of comics. Often times art spills out of the panels and the words wrap around giving it a unique feel, something that easy to remember as a unique trait of the book.

Usually this is the part where I mention parts I didn't like and honestly I can't name any. Blue Hand Mojo seems like it was created for people with me in mind. It's filled with tropes I love and enough twist to make sure it isn't predictable. For $2.99 it comes in around 100 pages of pure story content which is crazy when you consider you could pay the same for a single issue of Starlord. I'm not saying you have to go pick up a copy, I'm just saying you really should.

You can hear Darrell on the CP Time and Powerbomb Jutsu podcasts. He also plays classic arcade games on The Cabinet. You can also check out his playthrough of Sleeping Dogs or Skyrim

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