The final issue of Pretty Deadly: The Rat is out this week. With that in mind, I want to look at the first two installments of the series, The Shrike and The Bear. The comic follows two of Death’s reapers, Ginny and Big Alice, as they intervene with the lives of mortals throughout American history.
The first volume, Pretty Deadly: The Shrike, caught my attention because of Emma Rios’s art. While set in the bleak wild west, Rios illustrates a colorful, elegant world full of beauty and horror. Meanwhile, Kelly Sue Deconnick tells a fantastical western tale that does not fall into the overplayed tropes of either genre. Instead of focusing on bandits and cowboys, a diverse cast of complicated women dominate the mystical frontier.
Meanwhile the second volume, Pretty Deadly: The Bear, introduces new, endearing characters and places the story in World War I. The stakes are higher in this volume and the art is more haunting. War is hell, and this comic does not shy away from that fact; however, this comic does show that one does not have to fear death. The switch in genre and time period is surprisingly fluid. It illustrates how our perceptions of life and death change or stay the same over time.
Overall, Pretty Deadly is a stand out because it handles fantasy in such an original way. It features unique worlds that mix reality with the supernatural. People often underrepresented in westerns, fantasies, and war stories also take center stage here. Furthermore, this comic blends multiple genres with fantasy, updating the genre for old and new fans. These are just a handful of reasons why this comic is such a refreshing, new take on the fantasy genre.
What this comic shares with other fantastical stories is how it uses the extraordinary to emphasize the humanity at the core of each comic. As Deconnick and Rios mentioned in their newsletter, each volume deals with a piece of the human experience. Death, luck, art, love, and hope. These concepts are visualized by Deconnick’s magical words and Rios’s fantastical drawings. This makes both the human and supernatural characters even more relatable.
In short, Rios and Decconick have built an American mythology from the ground up. As someone who adores myths and looks for new ways to explore humanity through the unknown, this comic does both beautifully. From what I’ve seen of Pretty Deadly: The Rat, I’ve yet to be disappointed. With a 1930s Hollywood background, noir inspired art, and a crime thriller mixed with a ghost story, volume three continues to take this series above and beyond. I look forward to reading the final issue of The Rat, and I cannot wait to see what the last two books have in store.
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