Driver for the Dead Review

Title: Driver for the Dead

Arthur: John Heffernan

Artist: Leonardo Manco

Publisher: Radical Books

Binding: Paperback trade

Release Date: September 2011

           

            I’ve always have had a small obsession with the occult and supernatural. The idea of there possibly being creatures existing outside of normal explanation quickly fascinated me at a young age. I’m also quite the history buff as my library and long Netflix que of documentaries would suggest. I always love when a story manages to mix these two elements together. Now go ahead and add a gun totting hero with a bad ass muscle car in the mix and my nerdgasm is complete. “Driver for the Dead” manages to collect all these ingredients and conjures up a simply epic tale of tough undertaker who battles the undead in his supped up 69 GTO hearse dubbed Black Betty. If that last sentence doesn’t make you want to scream, “Fuck yeah” then I don’t know what else to say. Go read another super hero comic because if your interest isn’t already peaked within the context of this paragraph then it’s already a lost cause.

I’ll open this review with a little back story but fear not for spoilers as I’m not giving out any more information then what is really on the back cover. Louisiana is a state filled with culture. The food, the music may hold appeal to the tourists, but the voodoo culture and hoodoo religion holds a big chunk of what makes New Orleans so unique. Our story opens up with an elderly voodoo healer named Mose Freeman, (who’s looks are obviously taken from Morgan Freeman) arriving at house on the rich side of town. Turns out the family living there has a son who has mysteriously fallen ill requiring the, “special” services of Mr. Freeman. He quickly determines that a powerful hoodoo curse was placed on the boy by the family’s now fired maid and prepares to lift the curse from its young host and cast the spell back on its creator. Immediately the boy retaliates spewing out a giant snake-like demon from his mouth, giving Freeman the chance he needed to rescue the young soul, but not before fatally wounding himself in the process. With his last dying breaths the old man requests that the family call a Mr. Alabaster Graves, (modeled after Liam Nesson most likely) who turns out to be a driver for a funeral home. We learn quickly that Graves has if you pardon my ‘Taken’ reference, “a special set of skills” when it comes to the funeral home business and accepts the job just as Freeman’s great granddaughter; Marissa intervenes to tag along despite his protest. Now dragging along a third wheel, Graves and Marissa set out for a 10 hour drive to recover Freeman’s remains all the while unaware that an evil presence is spreading terror throughout New Orleans and closing in on them fast.

The cover for “Driver of the Dead” immediately caught my eye when I discovered this book online. The Dark grayish colors clash well with bright white font used in the title. Graves strikes a pose holding his trusty 50 cal. Sniper rifle in the foreground while the hero car lies in background with the grim reaper. It is from this image that Graves’s resemblance to Liam Nesson is uncanny in my opinion but whether it was intentional or not I don’t know as his facial features do tend to change a little bit throughout the comic.

Open up the book and reader is presented to artwork that can only be described as amazing. Penciled and inked by Leonardo Manco, (John Constantine, Hellblazer series), the level of detail between the characters and their surroundings is breath taking. The colors jump out on the pages and do a supreme job of depicting the many atmospheres throughout the story. Most people can only strive in illustrating figures or machines but Manco shows that he has excellent skills with both. Black Betty while admittedly a silly concept is designed in such a way that screams epicness and surely borrowed some cues from the Mad Max Interceptor with its huge blower and exaggerated exhaust. But don’t think that makes Betty unoriginal. The overall details that went into her are indeed unique and somebody needs to make this machine a reality.

Throughout the story, Graves encounters all kinds of monsters and none of them fail to impress. From vampires and werewolves to witches and rotting reanimated corpses, Manco pulls out all the stops on this incredibly dark comic. Their designs are all memorable as they are intimidating looking and will cause certain images to last in the readers mind for a while

Another particular construction In ‘Driver for the Dead’ is its sequential art style. Unlike most comics that use random sized panels throughout the pages, this title relies heavily on repetitious panoramic or vertical columns to tell the story. This helps give the art a more cinematic feel and also imitates time passing quite well. Mixed with dynamic shots, every page feels fresh and new; never once feeling banal.

The dialog bubble layouts are perfect as they never get in the way of the gorgeous scenes and are easy to understand who’s emitting the lines. Where most stick with just plain white bubbles and black text, we find that even here artistic designs are given to enhance effects. Cold dead vampires speak out of blue bubbles while those possessed by true evil speak out of black bubbles with red text making the dialog even easier to understand who is talking.

‘Driver of the Dead’ is once again a debut publication. This time by John Heffernan and most can only hope that they’re first attempts execute as well as he does here. It’s clear that he too has a thing for history and the hoodoo culture as it shows in his storytelling. Many of the monsters like the Loup Garoux exist in Louisiana’s folklore while Marie Laveau the Voodoo Queen of New Orleans was in fact a real person whose grave illustrated in the book is an actual place visited today by those hoping to have wishes come true or to gain good luck. The book dives deep in southern heritage including the civil war and even more recent known events like the tragedy of Katrina get mentioned here. Louisiana itself is indeed a supporting character here and Heffernan takes great care in showing that. All the main characters are fleshed out nicely, making everyone interesting in their own way. Many of the characters get their pasts brought up in extreme detail and really help show what makes them who they are. Personalities are abundant here and not once did I find a character being annoying and hoping for their scene to end. The dialog feels natural and fits the characters and their timelines. While Graves would speak like you and I, People who have been around for centuries talk with a much more distinctive form of dialog. The story also has a noir feel to it thanks to Grave’s Exposition dialog which I must say fits the atmosphere perfectly.

When it comes to grips with this book only three come to mind. The artwork while always stunning does have issues with continuity. For example the Reader sees early on that Freeman died from a large snake bite impaling right through him only later to have his corpse be shown dressed nicely and without wounds of any kind. There are some other scenes where bodies that should be stiff from rigamortis are shown still flaccid and easy to move around. My second complaint is sometimes characters are performing tasks that would obviously raise questions but don’t. For example, Graves parking his car in the middle of the woods and telling  Marissa to walk to a rest stop two miles away while he simply stretches his legs. If that wouldn’t make you say what in protest I don’t know what will. My third complaint is more of a pet peeve then a real issue. At one point of the story it is mentioned that a character died of broken heart, (cue Darth Vader's infamous NOOOOOO scene). Here we have a story filled with monsters, guns, gore, and American muscle and for a brief moment it all has to stop for death worthy of a cheesy soap opera. All theses are forgivable though as the story still kept me very much intrigued and entertained beyond what I was expecting.

In the end ‘Driver for the Dead’ is a gem of a find considering how it came from a lesser unknown publisher. Heffernan and Manco worked perfectly together and with the writer stating that he already has future stories in mind, I can only hope that these two get working on sequels soon. Graves is a fascinating character who obviously has potential yet to be discovered by the end of this story leaving the reader wanting more in a good way. It should be noted that full nudity does exist in this book but it’s never done in a way that feels like porn and instead exists in the contexts to certain mythos. If you are into the supernatural this is without a doubt a must buy title. The artwork is stunning, the characters are well developed and that GTO hearse is just bitchen. Seriously, somebody get to work on that. When my last ride eventually comes I want it to be in that automobile. So go ahead and get your copy from your local book store. You will not regret it.

Ryan Pierce