Jack Rabbit #5

Posted: Tuesday, November 2, 2004
By: Steve Saville

Cover of Jack Rabbit #5

Creator: Jeff Zwirek
Publisher: Self Published
Address: 5209 W. Montrose Ave 2nd Floor, Chicago, Il, 60641, USA.
Price: $1(US)

My original intention was to review Jack Rabbit 4 and 5 together. Made sense really as they were successive chapters in a continuing story arc. The fact, however, is that while they are part of the same story arc these two comics differ significantly as each has a distinctly different mood.

A darkness dominates this latest edition. Things have suddenly become quite serious. The previous chapter mixed humour with intrigue, in this edition the intrigue remains but the humour has been replaced with a tense edginess.

The prison bars that feature on the cover serve as a warning for this change of direction. These same prison bars dominate the first ten pages of the comic, set in the Police holding cells. Their effect is to heighten the tension and symbolise the distance that exists between Jack and his shady brother [alto ego] Black Jack. The meeting of these two bunny siblings is frequently interrupted by the deranged outbursts of the loony in the next cell. All and all it is pretty uncomfortable opening scene. The use of prison bars to symbolise separation is revisited later in the comic where the prison bars are replaced by a wire fence. The effect remains the same though, the barriers between the charaters are not just physical.

The prison cell scene is followed by a flashback of a youthful Jack and his relationship with his estranged love, Sandy Beach. From here on though things turn nasty as Jack Rabbit falls victim to a knife attack and is then pummelled by a deranged polar bear. The comic ends with Jack bleeding on the sidewalk as the villainous Jezus Diablo armed with his ghetto blaster struts in. A nice hanging ending wets the appetite for the next installement.

Piece by piece Zwirek is putting together this jigsaw puzzle of a tale. As I have said in a previous review it is a complex storyline but in this latest chapter it feels like Zwirek has his beast under a tighter control.

Visually the comic is still fairly conservative but then again that is probably not a bad idea when Zwirek populates his pages with such an eclectic cast. Personally I missed me old mate Snappy.

In a Word: Edgy



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