“Jules Verne meets The Untouchables, in a prohibition themed aerial crime adventure. To avoid dry laws rum runners and patrons alike take to the sky. Dirigibles and hot air balloons now serve as speakeasies and black markets for alcohol. Sky gangs and the police battle it out for rights to the sky.”
I don’t care who you are, that description is fucking awesome. Written by Andrew Maxwell, the man behind Aldous Spark, this is another comic with a setting that immediately stoked my curiosity. Now this next sentence is pretty irrelevant to everybody, but I was just about to unplug for the night and read a book before heading to bed (The Name Of The Wind by Patrick Rothfuss if you’re curious), but before I did that I wanted to have a quick look at the cover of Rum Row. As I said my curiosity was piqued by the blurb I had already read
Out of habit I checked the following page, and if my curiosity was piqued before, then it was distilled into a fine whiskey once I’d laid eyes upon the second page (I’m aware the analogy may not make sense. No, I don’t care).
The second page contains the comic’s credits, which are set up like an old broadsheet newspaper, and it does more to set the scene and tone of the comic than I’ve ever seen a credits page do before. The story centers around the raid of a speakeasy in the Prohibition era of American history, and because I don’t want to reveal too much of it here I won’t go into details, but it’s a really enjoyable comic and one that’s well worth the price of admission.
Artistically this is a great looking book, with every aspect feeling right for the period (even if an aspect may be more in the lines of a fantasy/steampunk style addition rather than historical).
The comic can be read as a standalone story, although the ending is open enough to allow for the story to continue effortlessly (indeed, there has been a Kickstarter launched for the second issue, which you can find here). Check out the first issue on ComiXology. It’s $2, and well worth the price.
Story: Andrew Maxwell Art: Michele Bandini Colours: Derek Dow
Story: 8.0 Art: 8.0 Overall: 8.0 Recommendation: Buy
Graphic Policy was provided with a FREE copy for review.
