Comic Review

Title: Liar’s Kiss

By Eric Skillman and Jhomar Soriano

Publisher: Top Shelf Productions

Released: April 2011

Reviewed by Richard Lam

“Why waste time with consequences and guilty consciences?”

There’s a shady PI up in a tree, discreetly photographing a young woman. She catches him in the act, but it appears they know each other. And then, they kiss, hard, long and passionately. There’s at least three twists in the first five pages of this book alone, and it rarely stops to slow down from there. Liar’s Kiss delves headfirst into an unforgiving world of fast talkers and hard black and white lines. No room for fuzzy grays or weak willed folks here. It’s all faintly familiar, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

It all starts innocently enough. And in this world, innocent means some slight infidelity and back-stabbing. PI Nick Archer is hired by a Johnny Kincaid who suspects his wife Abbey of being unfaithful. The only problem: Nick is the one she’s cheating with. That’s all well and fine, until Johnny is found dead the next morning. In the nine short chapters of this comic, Nick will dig deep into people’s pasts, unearth long-buried clues and suspects, and get a few timely rough-ups in the process.

“Doesn’t every woman crave a little danger?”

Liar’s Kiss borrows heavily and proudly from the crime and noir genre, with its pulpy but explicit sexuality, its cinematic imagery and its breakneck pacing. Every chapter reveals a new possible suspect and motive, while discarding a past one. There’s an impending sense of eventuality, where the story isn’t going to end happily, that more people are going to get hurt, or worse.

There’s a wonderful sort of marriage between writer Eric Skillman and artist Jhomar Soriano. The words roll off the page, with each line holding some hint or double meaning. It’s clean and tight, and all the more impressive that it’s Skillman’s debut. Soriano keeps things interesting with sharp angles, anguished faces, and most impressively, hazy charcoal gray watercolours whenever flashbacks occur. Together, they’ve pumped out a piece meant to be read in a single frantic sitting.

“It’s like you get off on guilt or something, what are you, a catholic?”

Despite an ending that wraps up a little too neatly, Skillman and Soriano have crafted a worthy entry into the crime comics cannon. With a solid supporting cast — from Acher’s spunky and hip assistant to the sour pair of cops that are always in the way — hard-boiled and witty banter is always close at hand. And while dealing with some dark and heavy stuff, the overall tone remains warmly nostalgic to the history of the genre. Guns, girls and a dead body — the building blocks are the same, it’s what you do with them that matters.

Written by :

richard.l.lam