Deep Cuts #2 // Review
Gail’s a singer. She’s a songwriter. She’s got this show opening on Broadway. It’s awful, though. She knows it. It’s a simple story of a guy who becomes a big jazz artist. The only thing is: Gail’s not really good with jazz. And she’s only got a couple of days to write it. No pressure, right? Gail can handle it. The challenge is set in Deep Cuts #2. The writing team of Kyle Higgins and Joe Clark are joined by the classy Jazz Age art of Helena Masellis in a story that is lent some dapper color by Igor Monti. Words come to everyone’s mouth courtesy of letterer Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou.
It’s 1928. Gail takes a train back home to Chicago to try to get the right space to write the best jazz song in history...the ONE thing that’s going to be good about her first show to open on Broadway. It’s going to be the song that ties everything together...or at least allows the audience to forget everything else that’s truly dreadful about it. She’s just got to find the right momentum. She might just find it in an old friend. He’s a charismatic guy and a talented musician. He knows she’s going to need to loosen up. So he takes her to a speakeasy. In Chicago, in 1928. What could go wrong?
Higgins and Clark tell a wistful tale of one woman and her one shot at something big. Her struggle and her journey find her brushing up with a great many people. The 48-page one-shot drama has a clear, driving beat to it, but it wisely avoids the kind of classic Hollywood plot structure that would make the story tedious. There have been countless tales of an artist trying to make it big. Higgins and Clark focus on Gail and her struggles in a way that embraces her as a person. The plot gracefully falls into place around the edges of her personality. It’s a sweet, sweet one-shot that makes one long for more time with Gail.
Masellis’s art is totally in love with the casual beauty of Gail. Her soulful eyes communicate so much in so many ways through nearly every panel. Masellis’s nonverbal exploration of Gail’s emotions adds a tremendous amount of depth to the story. It’s brilliantly subtle, but there’s SO much strength in Gail’s presence on the page, and so much of that strength is thanks to the resilience drawn onto her visage and posture. Monti’s colors rest tastefully around the edges of the art. Otsmane-Elhaou’s lettering is refreshingly outside the realm of traditional comic book lettering. Of particular note is his delivery of drunken text onto the page. It’s cleverly inebriated lettering that manages to be graceful and breathtakingly expressive.
Once again, Higgins and Clark have nailed a very sharp story that manages to resonate even though it’s telling the type of artist’s journey that has been delivered to page, stage, and screen countless times before. The distinct package that’s being delivered by Higgins and Clark feels quite refreshingly unlike anything else that’s currently on the comics rack.
