THUMBPRINT #3

Review by: LoyalBlood
Story by Jason Ciaramella & Joe Hill
Art by Vic Malhotra
Cover by Vic Malhotra


Size: 0 pages
Price: 3.99

On the surface, the sheer unlikeability of the main character in ‘Thumbprint’ could present a problem. For me, it certainly did… at least initially. (I’m reviewing all three issues of this mini, here). Dishonorably discharged by the US Army, a young private, Mallory Grennan, returns from Iraq and attempts to move on from what she has seen and done there. Considering her involvement in the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and her reputation as a brutal field interrogator, she has much to forget. But now that she’s home, pieces of paper, marked by a single thumbprint, ominously begin turning up in Mallory’s personal spaces, and she begins to descend into paranoid and antisocial behavior.

There are two or three scenes in this mini that depict Mallory, and her team in Iraq, torturing and interrogating their captives with such disturbing, immersive authenticity that we may be challenged to ask why, exactly, we’re reading “Thumbprint.” What saves the piece, however (for me, anyway) is the sheer intimacy of Mallory’s voice. With neither pride nor remorse, she narrates her emotions and experiences with such unselfconscious abandon that it forces the reader to engage… if not with her, then with our reactions to her. Do we want to believe that Mallory was always a bad seed and the war merely allowed her to live out her impulses? Do we hope for poetic retribution, for her own torture/murder/suicide? Or do we really want to discover she was once a “good person at heart,” that it was the atrocities of war that made her who she is. Are we looking for her salvation?

The comic leaves us no more answers than does the evening news. What is clear from this haunting and challenging work is that this veteran, whatever she used to be, is now a product of war in which she served.

The art is fantastic. Much is expressed in the characters’ bodies and faces through the simplicity of Vic Malhotra’s broad lines.

Story: 1 - Poor
Art: 1 - Poor

Comments

  1. Ah, crap. Hit [SUBMIT] before I entered my ratings, like a wiener.

    Story: 4
    Art: 4

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