Switchblade Stories #9 is a comic with story and art by Chris Askham. Frankie and Ginger have fun at the amusement park before continuing their road trip. This is a romantic drama with criminal elements, violence, defiant women, and a 1950’s/60’s counterculture vibe. The older of these two women is Frankie, she was married to a powerful and abusive man but she’s since left him and started a relationship and cross-country journey with Ginger. Ginger is significantly younger than Frankie and she is a fun-loving, adventurous person who can strike back hard when pushed. The story begins with this duo playing games and just generally having fun at an amusement park. After watching fights and eating food they decide to take a ride in the Tunnel of Love. This takes place in a 50’s/60’s world with all the dress and design that entails. The violence can get extremely gruesome and gory with little detail spared. This moves at a steady pace overall with some slow spots and a romantic but uneasy tone. This has multiple violent and dramatically intense moments. The dialogue is conversational with some older slang and sayings like something out of a classic black-and-white movie. There is one word-heavy page and a couple others get close. This is a tense and riveting issue that starts off as a fun lesbian romance starring two bold leads but due to sinister outside forces things take a dangerous turn. There is an unrelated and humorous one-page comic after the main story.

            The art here is drawn in a detailed pulpy style reminiscent of some of the earliest comics with some of the classic printing and coloring methods replicated as well. The color palette is realistic for the intended time period and the use of light and shadows is very well done. The only natural scenery we see is trees and bushes around buildings. The main locations are the motel these ladies are staying at and the amusement park; there are a couple other spots shown. Backgrounds here usually show the immediate surroundings from the wallpaper to the furniture but on occasion it’ll just be a single color. The expression level here is above-average as these characters are constantly reacting and can have multiple looks on a single page. Some of the emotions shown are happiness, joy, anger, rage, sadness, and fear. Faces here have a decent to good level of detail which results in most if not all of the different expressions being obvious. The violence is almost all physical with heavy gruesomeness and gore. There are a couple action scenes with an overall good flow and high panel count.

“Is this worth reading?”

Yes, if this is up your alley.

“Would I like this?”

If you like romantic dramas stories that star a lesbian couple on the run in a story with crime, violence, and that takes place in the 50’s/60’s then this is for you.

“What would this comic’s film rating be?”

NC-17. Violence, blood, gruesomeness, gore, nudity, sexual scenes.

“Could I get a quote from the comic?”

“It doesn’t need to play out like this.”

 

Kickstarter Link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/switchbladestories/switchblade-stories-issue-1-to-9-complete/description

***IN-DEPTH COMIC STATS BELOW***

Probably Contains Spoilers

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Actual Pages(not counting covers and credits): 25

Violent Pages: 4, for 16% of the comic

Sexy Pages: 4, for 16% of the comic

 

**The levels below aren’t necessarily maintained throughout the whole comic, but they were definitely reached**

 

Violence Level – 3

“Wasn’t no tussling at all.”

“Sometimes you gotta hit somebody.”

“I’m getting charged with how many counts of assault?”

“This was a tournament arc.”

“All my life I had to fight.”

 

Gore Level – 5

“The only thing leaking out your face is tears.”

“Looks like somebody spilled some ketchup.”

“Might need to soak that up with a bath towel.”

“That isn’t supposed to be outside the body.”

“This is a slaughterhouse.”

 

Death Level – 2

“And everybody lived happily ever after.”

“We might have gone to a couple funerals.”

“It just LOOKS like a serial killer was here.”

“Yeah this was a tragedy.”

“Think Gettysburg.”

 

Porn Level – 5

“Everybody kept their clothes on.”

“I guess it was too hot for a bra.”

“Sometimes you got to let everything air out.”

“This is like late night Cinemax in the early 2000’s.”

“Oh. This is porn.”