Sam and Twitch #14: Dumb Laws and Eggs

Written by Brian Michael Bendis
Art by Clayton Crain and Jonathan Glapion

It's becoming increasingly obvious, as I work my way through this series, that Bendis was a) given a lot of freedom in terms of the types of stories he wanted to tell; and b) was using this book as a way of trying out some new ideas and techniques.

This issue opens on Sam and Twitch, soon to be joined by KC, the medical examiner, discussing the website dumblaws.com before taking a call where they find a man who has been shot and then covered with broken eggs.  The suspect doesn't talk, and then she does.  It's a thirteen page story that highlights Bendis's facility with snarky dialogue, and then it's over.  I hit the letter's page and got confused.  It was shorter than an issue of Fell....

After the letter's page is the second half of the story, which has the murdered man and his friend talking on the roof of a building (before the murder, obviously), as the guy explains how he just dumped his girlfriend over an egg allergy.  It's an amusing enough issue, although pretty effervescent.  The first half of the comic did remind me of some of the better episodes of Homicide Life on the Street.

This issue has art by Clayton Crain, who is known for his dark, painted work on books like Ghost Rider and X-Force.  Here, he looks like he's doing a Todd McFarlane riff again, as has almost every artist on the book so far.  I don't know if it's just the heavy influence of Jonathan Glapion's inks, or if this was mandated by McFarlane, but it's weird that I've seen three different artists on this book whose work looks nothing like what they are producing today.  At least the next issue starts Alex Maleev's run, so that's going to be changing.