5 out of 5

I have never read anything as legitimately insane as White Trash.  Focus on that word ‘legitimate.’  I don’t mean weird.  I don’t mean whatever Transmetropolitan is.  I mean insane.  And I don’t think it’s an insult to scribe Gordon Rennie to say that a huge chunk of that descriptor comes from artist Martin Emond’s work, painted madness that blends the fervent detailing of Glenn Fabry with Corben-esque grotesquerie, Jamie Hewlett cartoonery, and, like, Brednan McCarthy’s panel-filling surreality.  The result is something that’s more energized than the sum of all its parts, something that your eyes bug out at while looking at the page.  Something that’s worth returning to.  But most importantly, while including all of this, it’s *not overwhelming.*  Emond has an impeccable sense of the page and timing.  You get the beats of his action and can slurp up all the little Easter Eggs he’s dropped in without having to work to understand what he’s actually drawing.  Not that White Trash could exist simply on art, though.  Yes, the visual impact is overwhelming, but Rennie – maybe he got lucky, and his writing just works with Emond, but having read some of Gordon’s other stuff, I have to think he knew how to write for his artist – Rennie’s dialogue, crass and quick, blends perfectly with the art.  Everything’s working together so that this can
have the intended effect of smacking you upside the head.

The plot is, essentially, the story of The King – seemingly tasked by the devil in a prologue – making his way to Vegas for a final show, picking up Axl Rose lookalike Dean for the ride.  The King hates faggots, and commies, and plenty of other lovely terms, and guzzles booze and downs drugs and fires guns like the madman he is depicted as.  Axl is ‘an innocent bystander’ but revels in the same, and we’re witnesses to this road trip.  Or captives, perhaps, as the four issues – once collected by Tundra, reprinted here by Titan – just fly by without our consent.  And there is more.  The boys pick up plenty of enemies along the way, and Rennie makes sure to juggle these interactions with their travels so the story actually feels like a story and not just an excuse for Emond to draw violence.

I’m not a big fan of crass for crass’ sake, and I wouldn’t say this is what White Trash is.  It seems more like something that would exist whether we’d asked for it or not, and two A+ creatives – Rennie and Emond – roped the project down and managed to translate it in a way to let it loose upon the world without destroying it.