By Dustin Cabeal
When I was instantly drawn to the covers for Sisco while looking through izneo’s catalog of titles; something about the covers just kept me coming back to them. I didn’t read what Sisco was about because I don’t ever do that. I blindly read anything and everything as a reviewer because it allows me to see if the story’s plot comes through on its own rather than through a synopsis supplied by a publisher.
There’s a lot to like about this story. The art is photo realistic and just beautiful to look at; this is by far one of the best looking comics I’ve seen all year. The story is well-plotted and paced. It has a little bit of sex, action, gunplay, and thrills, but I hate the main character. I mean, I really hate this dude.
Sisco is a little like James Bond, but if you were to take all the charm away and replace it with that douche guy that thinks the world owes him everything for being alive. You’ve all meet a person like this, their gender is irrelevant. Sisco works for the president, I’ll be honest, I didn’t catch what country this was taking place in, and it doesn’t particularly matter to the story. He’s sent a kill order and is happy to oblige. He then royally fucks up and lets a goddamn window washer see and record the entire thing. Points to the window washer for not trying to stop it from happening, but instead get the money shot on his phone.
Now Sisco’s in a bit of a bind and instead of hanging him out to dry like anyone else in power would, they try to fix his fuck up and track down the window cleaner and get his phone. The problem continues to escalate, and eventually, Sisco is removed from the “case.”
Here in lies the problem with the story and it’s the only issue I had with the story… I wanted Sisco to fail. I wanted the President and Sisco’s boss to come down on him hard because he was a fucker and fucked up. Instead, he gets to bang some beautiful married woman (possibly to the President I was unclear on that) and continue to nose around on the case. Don’t get me wrong, I found the entire situation interesting, but it was just that Sisco was so unlikable that I wanted to root against him. There are three more volumes of the story, so it’s possible that his personality will change and he’ll grow as a character, but for right now he’s a prick, and it hurt the story. I did chuckle when he told this guy to lean on his own car.
There is one other character that is completely unlikable. He and Sisco butt heads in the story early on, and it only gets worse. They have history, but we as the reader are never clued in on it making it difficult to understand why they want to pull a gun on each other whenever the other is near. It was like, just get a room already you two.
Again, the art is beautiful. You can read this comic and understand the majority of what’s happening. There will be finer details that you’ll miss which is a credit to the writing. The writing covers what the art can’t show and steps out of the way of the art for the rest of it. It’s photorealistic and not just the people. The cars and buildings look spot on and very real. This is the type of artwork you carve more of because of how wonderful it is to look at with every page. The coloring amplifies the artwork with its realism as well. It never blows out the linework and has the perfect lighting effects for each scene. There’s a stakeout in the rain scene that you’ve seen a million times in action movies, and this looks just as real and detailed. The mood was captured wonderfully from the coloring.
As much as I disliked the main character I couldn’t stop reading Sisco. I will be moving on to the next volume and see what awaits me there. Others could like his character and hell, it could be a translation issue that makes him so damn unlikable, but again, the art tells the story. Unlikable or not, Sisco isn’t to be missed. Check it out on izneo; there’s a preview below.
Score: 4/5
Sisco vol. 1 – Shoot When You’re Told
Writer: Benec
Artist: Thomas Legrain
Publisher: Europe Comics