Review: White Knuckle Birthday.

Written by Colin Westerfield
Art: Mac Cooper
Letters: Douglas E. Sherwood

For purchase online HERE

It seems that indie biker comic book stories have to involve birthdays (Mayfield Eight starts on Cal Ryder's 17th).

White Knuckle Birthday is set in the present day and has a young man named Robert Powell on his 34th birthday.

There's three chapters.

Chapter 1 bartender Robert Powell has suffered from a back alley mugging after closing The Black Tooth Bar, and is recovering in the hospital. He gets greeted by a nefarious bearded man in shades (Jack Martin), who wants him to do a job. Robert goes home and tries to get romantic with his girlfriend, who spurns him because his 'work' is dangerous (I presume she's not talking about the bar).

Chapter 2 he meets with a friend at a diner who gives him a gun and keeps talking about Idaho. Then Robert is in a bar meditating on life after his girlfriend Sophie left him. Then it's '6 months ago' and we see him trying to train Tim, a kick-boxing specialist who's also talking of doing work for this 'Jack Martin' guy.

In chapter 3 there's an opening scene at the Black Tooth bar again, and then an altercation outside involving the Kickboxer Tim, and then there's a '2 months ago' time stamp of Robert having a romantic dinner with Sophie...

Egad. 6 months 4 months what the hell's going on?

But let's not overlook the good stuff:

Colin's dialogue is well paced, measured and realistic.

The lettering is top shelf quality (in that I never noticed its placement).

Mac Cooper and Douglas have a good understanding of allowing the word balloons their space.

 Cooper has an uncanny knack for depicting subtle emotions (eagerness, pensiveness etc) which isn't easy. And he keeps it light and tight.

Now, the not-so-good stuff:

WKB suffers from a new writer's malady. Many fall victim to it. That malady is over-thinking the sequence of events. What could've been a great story here has its legs cut out from under it by the six or seven time-stamps and flashbacks. (I should talk. Mayfield Eight starts with a flashback). I had to go back and re-read the 46 pages to get why there needs to be the flashbacks, but I couldn't find a reason. Colin is making the reader do so much time travel that it gets very frustrating to have to remember at what stage Robert Powell is in his story. I'm sure Colin could've edited out all the flash-back time stamps and have made a decent story that unravels at its own pace.

White Knuckle birthday is a joy to look at though. Just don't try to make too much sense out of it. Since it boils down to bad guys beating up good guys I don't think you need to worry about losing track of the score.

Get Mayfield Eight.

Mayfield Eight, a gritty, 1970s fueled motorcycle grind-house biker tale can be purchased on my new online site! Get it today!