Hi Everyone.

Sorry for the slight delay. I had to wait for this issue coming in the post, and it's generally been a bit late recently due to Christmas and New Year.

Anyway, The 379th best selling comic(18th lowest) of November 2013(according to Comichron.com) selling 2,231 copies was All Crime Comics #2, from Art of Fiction.

As usual, I'm not familiar with the series, and didn't do any research into it before reading this issue, just to see if it's new reader friendly. There may be small spoilers, but I'll block them just in case. Let's start with the cover.

Cover:

The cover by Bruce Timm, who we all know from DC cartoons, is quite nice in drawing and colouring. This womans pose looks a little odd, but I may put that down to the retro style.

The cover is designed in a more old-fashioned style than we often see nowadays, and has a distressed look added to reflect age. The comic seems to be set in the past, and has a retro flashback, so it compliments the interior pretty well, despite not being handled by the same artist, and the cover not quite reflecting the story.

Art:

In the main parts of the issue, the art is by Steven E. Gordon, and generally looks good, with nice use of shadowing. The colours, by Tom Neely are quite simple, often rendering characters in a single colour. It doesn't look bad though, fitting the art and tone of the story.

There's a flashback scene handled by Vince Musacchia, which has a more retro look to it, which is a nice touch for a flashback. The colours by Kristina Collantes are presented in the old dotted style, and is done better than I'm used to seeing. It's more like seeing the colour dots that make up the colour than the dots looking like a pattern.

Story/Writing:

Dodger is thinking about all the crimes he's committed this week, and whilst him and Carly are pulling on pilot and flight attendant uniforms we see an unclothed man and woman, and Dodger thinking of how tonight it's assault, kidnapping, and soon hijacking. They're shown earlier that day heading to a bar to meet the corrupt Agent Knoblauch to pick up some passports and information from him, in exchange for Carlys car, and the location of some money. Dodger mentions that they'll need to arrange some transport, and they sit down to chat with a pilot and flight attendant. Posing as airline staff, Dodger, Carly, her daughter Tracy and an associate of Dodger get on a private plane, and set off. Carly asks Dodger where he learned to fly a plane.

Dodger tells a story of when we was young, on the day of the F.A. Cup final between Swansea and West Ham. Upon hearing of a talented West Ham player, Santiago not attending the match, Dodgers dad Freddie goes looking for him, barging into his home, finding him passed out amongst cocaine and nude women. He takes him to his van, meeting Dodger, who had gone looking for his dad, and they drive to a plane, to get Santiago to the match(I think). During the flight, whilst Freddie is telling Dodger how the controls work, Santiago wakes up and gets into a fight with Freddie, leading to Freddie being stabbed in the stomach with a screwdriver, and Santiago being hit in the head with a hammer. In his wounded state, Freddie crashes the plane, killing him, while Dodger walks away unharmed. Following this, we see Dodger and his mother leaving England for America.

Back in the present, Knoblauch and an associate go to pick up the money promised by Dodger, when they're ambushed by some people waiting for Dodger. A gun fight ensues, and they are all left dead apart from Knoblauch, when suddenly Dodgers nephew Maddy appears. Seeing that nothing stands between him and the money, he kills him Knoblauch and takes the money for himself.The passengers are tricked into getting off the plane, and the team, head for Johannesburg. Upon arrival they get a message to say that the money is safe, and Maddy is on his way to meet them. The issue ends with Dodger looking out the hotel window onto a football pitch, saying his day would have loved it there, apart from all the ☠☠☠☠ Nazis.

The issue is written and paced well, giving enough information to understand what was going on. I imagine some previous reading would have been helpful, but I didn't feel lost reading this, so it worked out O.K. There's a scene where football commentary is placed over an action sequence, and it fits nicely.

Other Things Worth Mentioning:

It's a prestige format comic, so could perhaps be put on a shelf with graphic novels. It's a little bigger than a normal comic, but just fits in a comic bag.

Not advertised as for mature reader, but contains the strongest possible language(that I know of anyway).

36 Pages of comic content for $3.95, which is a good bit more than you usually get for that price.

All advertising left to the end.

Printed on thick paper.

Overall:

Overall, I thought it was pretty good. Not the sort of thing I usually go for, but a decent read. I'll give it a high 3/5(9/15).

So has anyone on here read this issue? What did you think of it?

For this months main review, see here.

For this months first runner-up review, see here.

For a list of other comics I've reviewed, see here.

Thanks for reading. I'll hopefully have some December reviews up after the sales figures become available. :)

Scarlotte.