Stray Bullets: Innocence of Nihilism Review

Stray Bullets: Innocence of Nihilism

Story and art: Dave Lapham
Published by: Image Comics

Stray Bullets: Innocence of Nihilism is pure gold in black and white sequential form! This mighty volume contains 7 tales; stories awash in pulpy goodness and oozing blood. Dave Lapham has delivered a series of stories that delve to the depths of humanity and yet bring you back for more.

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We start our bloody journey with The Look of Love – a simple but smart tale with a body count that would make Arnie blush. The characters jump from the page, they give you everything that makes them who they are, the more you witness their journey, the more the denouement feels like a slap across the cheek.

Dave Lapham has crafted each tale beautifully, to pick this book up is an invitation to read until the bitter end, without pause, without delay, you hunger for more, only to reach the end of the road suitably satisfied with all that has gone before and yet, like a beat up rummy, you want more. Like Oliver Twist, with his bowl piteously empty, you want MORE!

The strength of Stray Bullets is a glorious mix of an expert story teller allied with the ability to translate wonderful stories into sequential form. There are no bum notes in any of the stories. Out of the collection, the second tale: Victimology stands out for me, it is a wonderfully constructed tale of the horrors and brutality of those on the dark road in life, but it is also a study on childhood. The brutality of the story is harsh, but believable.

The final tale in the collection is the most human of them all, titled Freedom, this story centres on Virginia Applejack’s father. He’s a good man, a loving father and fate really has it in for him. As events spiral to the ultimate conclusion for him, we see this deterioration and demise through the tortuous gaze of your Virginia… While many of the other tales deal with the horror of what people do to one another, here we have the hardest show, the awful Big C doing its worst. It’s a heartbreaker and the perfect way to end the book.

If you don’t already know of the majestic joy of Stray Bullets, don’t waste any more of your life, get this book into your consciousness. The writing is of the highest order and the tales, dripping blood and scattering bodies in all directions, are beautifully rendered.
This is as close to ‘perfect’ as you’re going to get.

Overall Score: 10/10