By Obi-Dan

Hard Bullied Comics #1-4
Back In Blackmail
Written by Steve Earnhart
Art by Rudolf Montemayor
Goodbum Studios
Cover price $2.95; Available now

Hard Bullied Comics is something of a one-man show, created, written, and lettered by Steve Earnhart. When I find this out about a comic, it can usually mean one of two things: either this guy is so far up himself, blinded by his own desire to create a comic that he doesn’t let anyone else get involved and creates a self indulgent mess that he refuses to believe is not the best thing ever created, or they are harbouring a creative talent which shows great potential.

I know which side of the line Mr. Earnhart stands on.

This four-issue arc entitled Back In Blackmail features the shady goings on in a parallel universe Los Angeles, 2024 where the twins from the Matrix Reloaded work the door at a club owned by an alien and a Hammerhead shark is a walking talking bounty hunter. In this world no one is above suspicion and I don’t think I’m giving too much away when I say double-crossing and back-stabbing are afoot.

Billy Blackburn — hung over, unemployed, dried up — gets an unexpected phone call. Mr. Torchsong, the local tycoon with friends in high places, is being blackmailed over a disc which contains a video of his daughter as the lead role in a video that would make a German orgy enthusiast blush: a whole night of death and debauchery caught on camera by local junkie/photographer Shutterbug. He wants Billy to track down the tape before his business rivals or the press get to it. But, of course, as with all good detective stories, not all is as it seems.

With the help of his tough and insane (always the best combination) friend Knuckles, a nickname which leaves little to the imagination, Billy sets about finding leads to the disc. So, too, does Mr. Hammer, the Hammerhead shark, hired by the obligatory femme-fatale in the shape of Cynthia Torchsong and her accomplice who hope to use the disc to blackmail her husband into handing over his vast fortune to her.

But someone else wants it, too.

Billy and Knuckles find Shutterbug sliced open wearing his guts as a neck tie (half-windsor knot) and need to ‘dig’ him (that is, open his head and download his last memories onto a dig player — a fancy iPod) to find out who did this.

Readers of Warren Ellis, in particular his prose novel Crooked Little Vein, will enjoy the hard-boiled detective idea, but this doesn’t hit that high. The wise-cracking dialogue often misses the noir-cool it was looking for and becomes cringe-worthy. There are some decent dashes of humour, though, especially the conversations Blackburn has with the brilliantly sarcastic Torchsong family butler, Killborn.

The black and white art of Rudolf Montemayor swings from sparse to over-done — as if he is trying to fill the panel with as many pencil strokes as he can, especially in the fight scenes. But that reflects the story and works in the comics favour; a mix of letting you have what seems like too much information in one panel, to not revealing enough in the next. Montemayor really shines when it comes to his excellent and effective silhouette work.

This is by no means an amazing or new take on the hard-boiled detective story and the dialogue can be confusing as the plot often makes way for poor one-liners. It is, however, a finely intricate crime story that is still a fun read and which shows potential for Steve Earnhart, who I would recommend keeping a close eye on.