Billy: Demon Slayer #3

Posted: Wednesday, April 30, 2003
By: Darren Schroeder

Cover of Billy: Demon Slayer #3 Creator(s): Hayden Fryer
Publishers: Siberian Productions (Self Published)
From: Australia
Price: $2.50 (AU)

The life and times of an anti-christ gone good takes it usual 9 to 5 routine: bust up a few cults, save the virgins from sacrifice, get kidnapped and assaulted by a trench coated demon, and finally do battle with a werewolf quartet aided by his guardian angel.

The gags and one liners continue in this issue a the son of Satan gets to kick but. Not so much in the way of coherent plot apart from some dialogue between Satan and his flunkies. The bits about some particularly nasty floral wallpaper in fight scene are good for a laugh, as in the interaction between Billy and his slightly lax Guardian angel. It's all good fun but Hayden will need to add something to the mix or make the plot more interesting if he wants to keep the readers attention. Billy goes around killing or beating lots of people, the reason why needs clarification.

Hayden's artwork remains simple, with computer shading filling out the usually sparse panels. Some of the page layouts are inventive, and he has he has fun drawing endless stairways in the underworld, but in some spots he lets things slide with rough inking and some fuzzy scanning.

A constant stream of death and violence is fun on a certain level, but it needs a spark of something extra to make #4 a tempting read, cause #3 didn't quite hit the spot for me.

In a Word: Coasting.



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