Author: Nate Cosby and Ben McCool
Art: Breno Tamura, Will Sliney
Colors: Chris Sotomayor, Donna Gregory
Printed by Image Comics
Sometimes a good old fashioned spy thriller is worth your time, and Pigs by Nate Cosby and Ben McCool are filling that bill nicely this morning. The 1960’s was a time of super spies, governments using third world countries as stomping grounds to prove the idea that Communism or Capitalism was the best. The ways that both sides of the fence worked to undermine each other played out all over the world map. This included sleeper cells, spies sent in with identities that would keep them from being identified as a spy and picked up off the street. Nate and Ben bring a great story line together in the Graphicly version of Pigs where children inherit the mission of their sleeper cell parents, bent on overthrowing the USA. In so many respects this is a classic spy book but with some modern moody twists that helps refine what it is to be a super spy thriller in comic books.
Moody, well drawn, well written and excellently colored this comic book is a modernized version of Modesty Blaise without all the overhang that we get in the re-release of some of the older spy comic books. Really this is about the kids, and their responsibilities when it comes to carrying on the parents mission, even if they don’t seem to want to do this after all this time of living in the country and integrating into society. The parents mission seems old, tired, worn out, and not worthy of pursuing in so many ways that the ideas of the parents tend to translate into the society that the kids find themselves living in. There is a lot of potential in the book, and honestly the writers live up to that potential throughout this trade paperback.
Overall going to rate this one five of five stars because it captures the enthusiasm of the parents that gets ground down in the gritty realism of the kids that have to carry on the plan. In the absence of a true mission, things get bogged down quickly and the moody atmosphere of the comic book just throws this nicely into the must own the physical version of the book. Unfortunately this one seems to have not been released yet in print form, and I have only been able to find it online. This one though you are going to want to own the physical version, and it was supposed to be released by now, but finding it online for purchasing is just not happening right now.
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