3 out of 5

An A for effort, maybe a B minus for everything else.

“It’s in this world that Paranormal Investigator Darius Mistry, P.I. and his ‘Golem of Prague’ buddy Amos, operate as Paranormal Investigators for hire.”  That’s from the back cover.  Did you catch the language quirks there?  Mistry, P.I. is part of Graphic India’s sudden comic book push, and no, I can’t fault them for translation issues or culturally bound books.  I support Spanish-publishing-in-English Amigo, after all, and they have some similar attributes.  But it’s one thing when creativity and eye-catching art shines through ESL limitations – as happens almost always with Amigo – versus Mistry, which is a loose idea presented via too-apparently amateurish efforts.
The description is pretty apt, though.  Mistry is a wise-cracking P.I. who uses magic and hunts down creepos with his childhood fedora-wearing buddy (putting him into the big lug territory of Hellboy), a golem, Amos.  There are ‘mysteries’ involved, like some missing dogs in the first issue, that – going by this example – will lead to bigger and badders creepos, requiring the crew to travel through the paranormal realm of “the underground,” but if the series lasts at all, I betcha that mystery bit isn’t going to end up being all that important, since we already have an epilogue that establishes some string-pulling villain.

The art (Arjuna Susini) has a pleasant indie looseness to it, like early Becky Cloonan, and compositions and character design are actually a highlight, but any scenes involving action or quick motion belie the work of a beginner, or someone who maybe isn’t used to illustrating that kinda stuff.  The lettering (Aditya Bidikar) has some appreciative floursh, but it’s almost without purpose.  Like the roughness of the art might’ve been better served by a tighter style.  And to Pande’s writing – you can absolutely sense the burbles of creativity (and promise) trying to break through the words, but it gets lost in a lot of forced witty hero / villain bravado.  Less might’ve been more in this case.

So in all cases, there’s an absolute earnestness to it that keeps you turning the page, slightly hoping it’ll all suddenly come together and get over that first-timer vibe.  And it’s possible these people are already huge in India.  But the American comic market is (or at least I assume it is) a different beast, and if this whole presentation wasn’t fueled by that earnestness, it would probably be easier to say that it’s not worth the read.

Most unethusiastic three star review ever?