Perhaps the first thing you might notice about Gun Theory is the lack of clutter in each panel. The colours are simple and uniform. Often dark shades to make the backgrounds feel cast in a deep, constant shadow.
The characters, by contrast, stand out easily amongst the dark tones of their surroundings, despite their equally dark tones. All the lines are crisp and easily point out every element the artist wants you to notice in each panel.
The story starts as most others do, showing the end result of the story itself, with the main character bleeding against a wall and considering a philosophy, this time about the expressions of the recently dead. With a quick fade to black we get the overused trope of “One week earlier”.
Despite its overused state, this particular trope can often hook me in even faster than a story I have been following for weeks. I found myself quickly keen to find out what had happened to leave four characters’ dead in the first three pages and a final one bleeding out as he recounts the story.
I am a bit of a sucker for a good mystery.
Gun Theory delivers. The characters may be a bit two dimensional at the outset but that didn’t stop me from reading all 150+ pages in about 20minutes and looking online for the next volume… there isn’t one.
Since my first read through, and over the holidays, I have had the chance to read it a few more times before writing this. I am glad that I did.
Without a re-read I may have been a bit more critical of Gun Theory, but after further reading and taking my time with the story the more I realized how detailed the character of Harvey was.
Well, as detailed as a normal person can write the character of a complete sociopath at least.
The clues all lie in the commentary that he provides from page to page and the conflict that he comes against towards the middle of the story. I had missed it my first time through but considering his profession as an assassin, it should have jumped out at me.
Overall, if you want a quick and easy read, with good twists and a couple of surprisingly deep characters, Gun Theory may just be the comic for you.
Be sure to head over to Dark Horse and pick up your very own complete copy.
