Writer: Garth Ennis

Artist: Marc Dos Santos

Colorist: Andrew Elder

 

For majority of the books I review, I have a vague familiarity with it’s existence or have knowledge of what the story could be. For A Train Called Love, the only bit of the book that I had any familiarity with was Garth Ennis, and I probably would have just not noticed this book without that name. Having loved everything Ennis, I wanted to give this a try. Leaving the book, I’m still fairly confused on what it is, and what the story will be going forward.

This issue is seemingly a look at 3 people/groups of people. The first we meet is Marcy, who’s a lead singer of a band we are seeing at a bar. Through the issue we don’t really get too much info on her, and we don’t focus on her except for the book ends. That being said, she appears to have everything working against her at this bar, and leaving the issue, she’s the one I’m really left wanting to know more about. Second, we see Valerie in her apartment, and are instantly thrown into Ennis style insanity when she gets a voicemail from a peeping tom neighbor. As she goes to give some justice to this creep, she comes across much more than she bargained for in the form of Myles. Lastly, Marv, Jev, Chip, and Mike are the last group, who we meet at a table at the same bar. Mike comes a little later from the group, and tells them about his day, which was equally as insane as Valerie’s. I don’t want to spoil what happened, since it was easily the most ridiculous part of the issue, which is why I’m being fairly vague. While these snippets had moments of classic Ennis wackiness, there was not much to grab onto. The ending gave us a few cliffhangers, but this issue did very little seemingly to push the story forward. I get the impression that when the whole first arc is collected, this will make a whole lot more sense, but in terms of a single issue, I was left wanting more. I will say, however, that Ennis is still excellent in terms of character work, as each of these people seemed very real and relatable (except one obvious exception).

Even though I found some Ennis greatness in the story, I sadly cannot say the same in the art. I don’t want to just blindly bash, because looking at the whole work, it’s clear that Dos Santos is talented and all the building blocks are there, it just needs some refinement. The two biggest issues are in the facial work and consistency. A lot of these women look very similar, and it became a little distracting. While his figure worked was exaggerated, it still looked solid, but the faces appeared to be a little unfinished and, when not looking similar to another character, it was inconsistent storytelling wise. Having a seeming Manga influence, sometimes detail in the face can be forgotten, but I feel that just some small touches would make this art very good. That being said, I have no doubt that it’s a possible fix from Dos Santos. In addition, the colors didn’t do anyone any favors, as Dos Santos work screams for a flatter tone, but this looked overly filtered. This is a problem that I see a lot in some books, and since the answer is just to tone it back a little, I feel like this is possible, and would also make the figures much stronger.

While this single issue didn’t jump out at me, I can see the potential for a solid long form story, and the base for some really good artwork. On this one, I would say wait for a trade, as I can’t help but trust Ennis in the long term.

 

2.5 Peeping Toms of 5