Pretty Deadly Volume 1: The Shrike

by Kelly Sue DeConnick

Emma Rios (Artist) and Jordie Bellair (Artist)

Kelly Sue DeConnick (Avengers Assemble, Captain Marvel) andEmma Rios (Dr. Strange, Osborn) present the collected opening arcof their surprise-hit series that marries the magical realism of Sandmanwith the western brutality of Preacher. Death's daughter rides the windon a horse made of smoke and her face bears the skull marks of her father. Herorigin story is a tale of retribution as beautifully lush as it is unflinchinglysavage.

"It's a perfect match for the gorgeous, dizzying artwork in a sumptuouspalette-overlaid panels add intricate choreography to fight scenes, anddetailed, whirling splash pages beg for long-lingering looks. Couple that, alongwith a handful of Eisner nominations, with a multicultural cast oftough-as-nails women who all fight for their own honor, and this is a series towatch out for." - Booklist

"It's ambitious and challenging (two qualities that are not often valued,but that probably should be), under a façade of violence and sacrifice.Rio's art is lush and detailed, and is more than capable of keeping up with thefar-reaching story." - PW

• ISBN10: 1607069628
• ISBN13: 9781607069621
• Publish Date: 13 May 2014
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Image Comics
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 120
• Language: English

Reviews

[layawaydragon]

That was fucking awesome!!

Okay, so I had bought this a while ago, forgot about it and found it again when looking for my next comic read. At this point, I had completely forgotten what it was about. I was perplexed by the first several pages and there's a graphic shooting of a rabbit. Not...good, but since the best, favoritest comic I've read is WE3, it's nothing I couldn't handle.

The vivid graphics continues as this is a tale of trash men, and kickass women. There is also nudity, sex, and prostitution. No fading to black here.

I was really hooked once we got to the vulture girl and with Ginny was swept away. Absolutely fan-fucking-tastic. Yesssssssssssssssssssssss.

Also, of course Grief is a black woman. Of course, the character that gets fucked over royally for no good reason who did nothing wrong and everything right is black.

And that goddamn ending. I really need to get my shit together and continue this ASAP.

[inlibrisveritas]

Pretty Deadly is both bizarre and beautiful, and wholly unique.

When I first started reading this I wasn’t really sure what to make of it. The art style wasn’t winning any points from me and I couldn’t quite figure out the story. I had so many questions; who is the little girl? why does she wear a vulture? who is the crazy lady? It does take a bit to start piecing everything together, but even without all of my questions answered it was still an addicting read and it kept getting better.

The story features of number of characters but mostly focuses on the story of Death’s daughter, who becomes more and more active in the storyline as the story progresses. The story arc in this volume ties up rather nicely as well, which is fantastic if you only buy the trade paperbacks and not the issues.

I really can’t wait to continue this one! I’m so curious to see what Ginny goes on to do next and how Sissy fares in her new role! Overall it’s a very solid start and I look forward to seeing where it takes me!