Sweets #1

by Kody Chamberlain

Sweets is, based on the first issue, a difficult comic to describe.  It's a police procedural set in antediluvian New Orleans, where a serial killer has killed six times in a matter of days, and in each instant, left behind some pecan pralines.  We have the usual characters - a drunk detective, devastated by the recent loss of his daughter, his good-hearted partner, and a tough as nails lieutenant.

Were that all that was going on, I'd dump the book right now.  But Chamberlain has some other ideas for this title, and I feel like this first issue is really just a sampler of what's to come.  That makes this issue a little hard to follow, but more interesting at the same time.

While most of the book is drawn in a gritty, realistic style (like on the cover), there are a couple of pages in the middle laid out in a 16-panel grid that feature a woman and her children in a van, drawn in a very cartoonish style.  I have no idea what this sequence has to do with the rest of the book, yet I found it, and its inclusion, the most interesting thing here. 

I wasn't sure if I'd be interested in this title, but Chamberlain has intrigued me enough to guarantee that I'll pick up the second issue.