Review: Redneck #3

June 28, 2017

By Daniel Vlasaty

Donny Cates is legit everywhere right now. Dude’s on fire. Much like the wheelchair on the cover of Redneck #3. Much like most of this issue, everything explosive and basking in the glow of flames as the town burns the Bowman compound. Shit gets pretty intense pretty goddamn quickly in this issue. The violence is over the top and maybe a little excessive (which is something I’m all onboard with) but it’s never used to replace a lacking story. I think some writers try too hard to be like Hollywood blockbuster movies. Think about it, think about those movies for a second. Most of the time they have a pretty weak or generic or clichéd story and they make up for that with special effects and blood and explosions. In my opinion, having a ton of shit blow up and just balls-to-the-wall violence will never make up for a shitty story. What I mean is Cates knows what he’s doing here. He knows the story he’s telling and he’s using the violence as a tool, as a way to move the story forward, not just as violence for the sake of violence.

Review: The Last Contract

May 31, 2017

By Daniel Vlasaty

If you’re at all familiar with my reviews then you know my usual reading leans more toward the crime fiction side of comics. So, when I saw The Last Contract come up on the review list, you know I had to jump on that thing. I remember seeing this book on the shelves when it was originally coming out, but for some reason I never started reading it. And because of this, I guess, I didn’t know anything about the book at all. I went in blind, essentially, only going off the title and the cover. There’s a car parked near a lake or a river, a body visible in the trunk. The city skyline off in the distance. There are two people standing in front of the car, at the water’s edge. One on his knees, one standing behind him. You can’t see it but you just know he’s holding a gun to the guy on the ground. It’s all dark, colored in blacks and blues. This is all I had going into the book. And I had to know more.

Review: Redneck #2

May 24, 2017

By Daniel Vlasaty

I know I said this in my review of Redneck #1, but I wanted to put it out there again: I generally don’t like vampires. I think it’s probably because there’s already an oversaturation of vampires in movies and books and comics and TV shows and, shit, probably even weird sex subcultures that I don’t even know about. Basically, vampires are freaking everywhere. They’ve been done before. We get it with the vampires already. They live forever and they’re attractive and moody and blah blah blah. So how does this hillbilly vampire story set deep in the heart of Texas hold up in a world already overrun by fucking vampires? Here’s my review of Redneck #1, written by Donny Cates, drawn by Lisandro Estherren, and colored by Dee Cunniffe.

Image Announces "Redneck" from Cates and Estherren

January 24, 2017

Press Release

Donny Cates (GOD COUNTRY) teams up with artist Lisandro Estherren and colorist Dee Cunniffe for an all-new Southern vampire series—REDNECK—set to launch this April from Image Comics/Skybound Entertainment.