2 out of 5

A funny idea that survives thanks to indie comic zeal… but is also bitten by amateurishness that affects readability, probably from the same source.

We’re not really given any context here beyond a half-page in-the-shadows flashback to Broadsword’s past as a barbarian; otherwise, it’s what it says on the tin: BS is now a P.I., and we’ll read a few stories per issue that detail his various deaths across ages and maybe dimensions, I dunno. It’s an excuse to throw Broadsword into any situation, with the loosest framework of his acting as a P.I. – initially there are noir tropes thrown in to fit the theme, but later, who cares, BS wears a Doors t-shirt, and there’s a guy with a cheeseburger for a head and he fights Cthulu – and the running gag that he always dies at the end of any given tale. Might there be background to this outside of this issue, or forthcoming in later entries in this series? Possibly, but the sense of humor from writers Ostley, Ravi, and Wolper is mostly of the random variety (genre “satire” is kind of shoved in via generic pulpy one-liners), and artist Ostley is of a zine tradition, where panels flit all over the page and narration bubbles are uneven and cramped and easy to read out of order. The idea is conceptually funny, and I can see this as the kind of surreal, rough-edged something that shows up in a college newspaper – the zine vibe is fitting for that – but trying to sit down and read strips consecutively can be rather maddening: it’s all very uneven, and not presented with any real affection for either genres (swords and sandals / pulp) it’s mashing together beyond surface level stuff. …Which thus affects how you read it: as surface level stuff.