3 out of 5

A fantastically designed pulpy cover of lead Hank running in color flatted silhouette – and heck, that perfect book title – encompass some generic but competent innards.

Writer Scott Schmidt gives us acceptable one sentence world building – a spell to merge demon and human worlds gone awry has left us with a bifurcated city – and thus sets up our Roger Rabbit humans / monsters begrudgingly living and working side by side scenario.

When an imp corse is discovered human side, butt-of-many-Frankenstein-jokes monster detective Hank is called in as the monster representative.  And then… fisticuffs.  Hankster walks around, mistaking bleeped-out dialogue for chiseled noir narration, following some basic threads to a bar room brawl and a hasty conclusion to his murder “mystery,” with extra light emphasis on that highlighted word.  Which is fine: Schmidt is going for silly pastiche and not mind-bending twists, but there is very little heft here beyond the amusing premise.

Artist Tyler Sowles has a very open style that doesn’t account for foreshortening well, but his panels have a nice mood and sense of space, if a basic one.  Hank’s character model is particularly effective at setting tonal expectations.

As an indie affair, Hank Steiner is good, and certainly worth fleshing out for further issues.  As a standalone read, it’s super standard, though probably as effective as 90% of the Marvel or DC stuff out there.