4 out of 5

For once – for once – an indie creator’s ideas are enough to fully overcome some lacking technical skills.  Undoubtedly you’ll think of a few other examples to overcome that ‘once’, and I would’ve offered some up as well… before having read the collected ‘Complex City,’ wherein Smith’s ideas and abilities as a writer just wow you through the pages, compared to other indie ‘I can sorta draw and write’ efforts where you respect the product, but can’t help but notice the warts.  Smith seems to be well aware of his limitations as an artist and so doesn’t go for gold in that territory, keeping his paneling tight and communicating exactly what’s needed.  Some foreshortening is a little clunky, but it really doesn’t matter because the tale is so much fun.

So Inspector Bulldog Malone – the city’s only anthropomorphic police detective, we’re told – is lacking sleep but goes to assist with one last case, a rowdy Shadowling – you know, that race of magic using, dwarfish green creatures – has eaten a policeman.  The Shadowling is dealt with, and Malone discovers that the creature had been protecting a safe… which requires boy genius Fidge Dextro to open… which contains an item that the two-brained robot Max is called upon to steal… which is all somehow tied into local urban legend ‘Crazy Quilt…’  It sounds a little bonkers, but what’s cool is how Smith lays it all out somewhat factually, so we don’t feel like we’re just having random ideas thrown at us, but rather discovering preexisting Complex City oddities, and the narrative smartly drops enough pointers to let us know what’s what and who’s who.

You won’t mistake the art for A-list, but its very clean and absolutely competent for communicating the cool sequences and fun characters Smith’s designed.  It certainly gets more solid as things go along, the round penciling style coming to look like Paul Gulacy… except better because no one looks all stupid bug-eyed.  There’s a good indication of how JE’s narrative skills help to keep this a cut above in the middle of the book, where Malone’s Quilt investigations are broken down to us in a text page.  I can’t say what the reason for this was except that it would’ve been a lot of talking heads to draw, so I can appreciate the decision to just type it out.  But what’s more notable about this is how well written it is.  Nothing flashy, really, or wowing metaphors or anything like that, but take a look at an author-scripted letters page in some books you might have.  A lot of times, these guys aren’t that great at just straight out writing.  Perhaps owing to Smith’s background as a ‘zine writer, he’s comfortable with words, and it shows.  His fanboy nature brought him to develop the cool world of Complex City and then he stepped up to the plate to get his artwork to a point where it could tell the story.  And it’s tons of fun.

Plenty of extra pin-ups in the trade – which are actually worth looking at, because Malone is totally a pin-up earning character – and a pretty glowing, if wandering, intro by Steve Bissette, plus an interesting post-script by the author.