Ed Burn's Dock Walloper

Written by Ed Burns and Jimmy Palmiotti
Art by Siju Thomas
I guess the first thing to say about this book is that I didn't know there were two Ed Burns whose names might be used to sell a comic. I immediately thought of the Ed Burns who co-produced and wrote for The Wire and Generation Kill, and not the one who was in Brothers McMullen. And due to that ignorance, I bought a comic I didn't really want.

There's nothing all that wrong with this book really, it's just not my thing. It's all about a man named John Smith, who has a gigantic right arm and hand, and who starts to climb his way up the Irish mob scene in Prohibition New York. Strangely, he doesn't use his giant arm and hand for more than shooting tommy guns, where I would assume that giant fingers wouldn't fit inside trigger guards, but it's all good.

This was intended to become a movie, and I'm not sure I could see it being all that successful. Beyond the issue of the giant arm and hand (hard to get past that), there has to be the believability in the racial harmony that Smith exhibits, which wouldn't really fit at the time. Also, the plot gets a little convoluted, and all the bad guys look the same.

On the plus side, this comic gives a couple cameo appearances to the photographer Weegee, which makes me happy, if almost nobody else.

The art is sketchy and hurried, and there are some seriously messed up shots, like any time that Bootsy (Smith's black friend) kicks anyone in the face. Oh well, the book was entertaining enough, although it's not hard to see why Virgin went under....