Michael D Hamersky On Comics Presents Vinnie's Review On... The Dare Detectives! Case Number One - Published by Archaia Entertainment!

TODAY'S FEATURE IS BLOG #3630 -  Yesterday we received another package of items published at Archaia Entertainment. On looking at the publications, the title "The Dare Detectives!" stood out loud and clear to me. I decided to start reading through, and I was immediately hooked. The creator, Ben Caldwell, had an beautiful style of writing. In the first "case", or issue, he greatly developed the characters, making sure to keep all of their personalities specifically tied to them. I greatly enjoyed this publication, and I will explain why in more detail.

The dialogue of the characters remained fluid, and kept to the style originally introduced with them. I love that the author also took the time to make each character different - not all just honest good-doers, but real, imaginable people. The three main characters, the "dare detectives," are Maria Dare, Toby Taylor, and Jojo. They are all briefly described on the back with "Meet the world's most defective detectives -- hot-headed Maria, thick-headed Toby, and bunny-headed Jojo." Maria, the "shoot first, ask questions later" kind of woman often jumps straight into the action, rather than wait for the police to show up. Toby, the kind, hard-headed guy, who is often targeted by Maria and Jojo's cruel jokes, is more brawn than brain. Jojo, the last of the detectives is a rabbit who can be defined as "insensitive." He likes to speak before he thinks, often leading to being rude to others, and humor to the reader. Although I usually have a favorite main character, all of these guys have their quirks, and I have to say, I love them all.

The story advanced at a steady pace, not going too fast or to slow to leave the reader either confused or bored. This issue contained interesting villains with unique powers or weapons, such as the main villain in this issue, Madame Bleu, with her "freeze ring."

[SPOILER] The author, Ben Caldwell, also left the story of Bleu shrouded in mystery, and despite ending with Bleu in jail, I have a good feeling she'll be making a return in the near future. [END SPOILER]

The artwork was, to say the least, beautiful. Each character group seemed to have their own style. The women were drawn with more abrupt curves, while the men were drawn with more rounded curves. To prevent spoiling even more, I will use the term "creatures" but those, with the addition of Jojo, were also drawn with more "loosely drawn" lines, being that it was more flowing, rather than being more curvy. The way that this was done made it feel like it had multiple illustrators, although it was all done by Ben Caldwell, except the added touches of coloring and inking done by Bill Halliar and Mike Mucci. It added great variety, and made for more interesting artwork.

There was an added section, affectionately named "Bonus Junk" which included some mock-ups of possible future covers, as well as some concept art. I felt it was a nice addition, showing the readers the path that Ben took to get to the final images.

All in all, "The Dare Detectives!" issue #1 was a great success, if you ask me. I give this graphic novel a comic book grade of Near Mint (NM), a 9.4 out of 10.0 grade scale. My only deduction of rating was due to some awkwardness with a couple panels, being that it read from left to right across two pages, and then changed to up to down going left to right. Although it occured maybe two times at most, I think it would be easier for people to read if it kept one simple pattern per page. I do really like that uniqueness of it covering the two pages, and I would love to see that incorporated, just by itself, though. I thank you for this magnificient book, and I can't wait to read case #2!

~Vinnie

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