Kansas City. 1940. Alice is a very imaginative kid. Reads comic books. The adults in her life are struggling, but they seem to be making a living. They live in a pretty nice house. One of them works while the other is out presumably working. Her father, Otis, has a big bass that’s hard to miss. Alice is about to learn a bit more about her father’s past in Deep Cuts #3. The writing team of Joe Clark and Kyle Higgins tells a story that is stylishly brought to the page by Diego Greco. Clever color adds depth and atmosphere in interesting ways courtesy of Igor Monti. It’s a sharp, little working-class mystery out of history that casts a clever glance at those on the edge of the professional performance scene. 

Lemont has given Alice a doll. He doesn’t know any better. She loves comics and mysteries. Not too fond of the traditional stuff that girls are into. Lemont’s an old friend of her father’s. The two men once played together with Batty Betty. (Lemont played drums.) Now, Alice has a whole new mystery to figure out: why did her father give up music? It’s going to be a deep dive into the past, which might shed a little more light on the mysterious man who is raising her. 

Clark and Higgins allow the story to slowly fade in around the edges of a richly textured midwestern 1940. Alice is given the center of the page, but she’s nice enough about it. She doesn’t dominate that story, but there’s no questioning that she’s the center of it as she struggles to understand her father just a little bit more. Clark and Higgins allow the ensemble to be the heart of the story, but there IS a lot of background that firmly anchors the story into one of music and mystery in an early era of pop music.

Greco conjures a richly-rendered Kansas City to the page. There are plenty of exterior shots set in a midwestern winter that feel richly atmospheric, with snow and cold clinging to the page thanks to some very sharp work on the part of Monti. It’s not just exterior shots, though. The quality of light coming in through the windows inside feels like the light of winter. There’s a soft, white quality about it. Through it all, Greco and Monti give active intensity to Alice’s journey while gracing her father with a kind of casual mystery that firmly ties the casual visual drama to the deeper aspects of the story.

Clark and Higgins show a masterful sense of rhythm with respect to the overall plot structure of the one-shot story. Dramatic moments hang in the air and on the page just long enough to make an impression before the next major plot point glides into view. It’s a remarkably delicate and intricate drama that continues to establish Deep Cuts as one of the best new series of 2023.

Grade: A