By Comix
Pin-up art tends to have its ups and downs. First getting popular in WWII, airplane fighters found themselves painting busty ladies on the side of their ride with such timeless names as Versatile Lady and Back Seat Betty. The fifties exploded into a bonanza of painted, photographed, and penciled pin-up girls, and this was eventually adopted into the biker culture with feminized demons and sexy Satans. These iconic ladies have become such a staple of alternative culture, that they can range from fully painted garage decorations to shittily tattooed, lumpy headed women. Sin Boldly is, I’m very proud to say, definitely the former. With outfits so skimpy they would make Vampirella blush, the new Image comic is bringing back some of that old, sexy sensibility with a healthy dose of ass-kicking and high heels.
Our comic opens up with a lady demon, Sinful Suzie, recounting her tale of woe at losing a soul she feels she rightfully earned. She goes on to explain how she cut a deal with a pissed off artist who wanted a rival of his dead. After paying up her end (and accidently making the murdered guy way more famous), her deal-maker blasts his head off, leaving her a freshly dead soul. Little does she know that she cannot claim suicides, no matter what they owe her, so she ends up at Hell’s IRS, demanding her payment. Let’s just say it doesn’t go according to plan.
I wish I could give a better description of what actually happens, but it’s a pretty slow start. Not so much action wise but plot-wise, nothing really happens. Most comics, at least in my experience, have two peaks of suspense, one in the middle and one to end the issue on. This one stops on what clearly is the first suspense peak, ending way too soon. The story that you do get to get into is pretty awesome. It’s very tounge-in-cheek, like those old Chaos! Comics. Sinful Suzie is all tits and ass, literally only dressed in boots and a thong, while the rest of the cast is like a homage to mid-90’s Spawn demons. Different shapes, diverse torture methods, cracking jokes, the whole nine-yards. It’s fun and witty while rolling with the punches.
The real deal is the art though. While not “mind-blowing” by any means, it doesn’t suck, which is pretty big deal when it comes this kind of kitschy comic. Usually you get some sub-standard penciling or, god help me, inking, that smudges up the finer details and comes off way cheesier than it should. Sin Boldy, with art by Joseph Michael Linsner, stays very clean, making this a very smooth read. The line work is fantastically done, showing some solid dedication by the artist and the sequential action moves beautifully from one panel to the next. There is no color, only using shades of gray, which probably helps the de-cluttered appearance.
The comic also shares space with Lisner’s other work, Obsidian Stone, about a future bounty hunter/detective (I didn’t get too into it as it’s not really up the alley of our fine website.) That story is illustrated as well as written by Lisner, showing a different side of the man’s work. Both of these works are the kind of thing you would find in a Heavy Metal magazine, so if you’re a fan of fine ladies and classic story telling, this would be right up your alley. Personally, I think they should split the two up, but getting twice the comic for your buck isn’t a bad deal. So I guess, if you’re bored and feeling horny, check out Sin Badly. It’s not terrible.