Lead City #2 is a comic written by Eric Borden with art by Kyle Brummond. Eight people descend on a town in an attempt to win a contest that would provide them with riches. This issue shows the beginning of this competition and the different personalities of the competitors before it begins. The players in this game are: Dolores Cruz-Vega, Jiao-long Ru Ren, Wendell Walker Jr., Ravinder Singh, Harlan Crouch, Niall Kelly, Leslie Sharp, and Colman Cooper. There are at least 6 different ethnicities represented and a variety of temperaments. The plot begins in the morning and leads into the match as we get a bit of preamble. The action is very western with crashes through buildings and dodging behind counters. The pace is mostly slow with nice bursts of intense moments. The banter here is excellent with lots of confrontational speech and bravado. There are a few words used that aren’t common now so you may have to look a few meanings up. There are a couple pages that are debatably wordy but they all read smoothly so you shouldn’t get hung up. While the first issue set the foundation this follow up serves up the meat of this story.

            This is a heavily-stylized comic with a look reminiscent of early TV/movie Westerns, with a low amount of color variety with an overall brownness. This adds to the grimness, grit, and fear of the story and the people within. Speaking of the people, they show more expression now than the last time but they still don’t show too much. Due the nature of the situation they are in it isn’t surprising that they aren’t wearing more emotions on their sleeves. In spite of this the faces are stupendously drawn with great attention paid to the smaller details and almost no face sameness. The story takes place in two towns: one for living and one for dying. The equipment varies greatly with bladed and blunt weapons from around the globe and the usual Western assortment of guns. The action here is bloody and destructive with scenes being a bit short and sweet but very impactful. A lot of panels are used on a page during the scenes so we get a clearer picture of what is going on.

“Is this worth reading?”

Yes.

“Would I like this?”

If you like Western comics with a large cast and high stake competitions where death is on the table this is for you.

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

R. Bloody violence.

“Could I get a quote from the comic?”

“It’s many a time a man’s mouth broke his nose.”

 

Purchase Link: https://www.red5comics.com/ko-titles/lead-city-2

Kickstarter Link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ericborden/lead-city-2/description

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

Probably Contains Spoilers

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Actual Pages(not counting covers and credits): 24

Violent Pages: 7, for 29% of the comic

Sexy Pages: 0, for 0% 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 – 3

“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 – 1

“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.”