Written by: Rich Tomasso
Art by: Rich Tomasso
Published by: Image
Dark Corridor is a pretty cool idea, it’s not so much the title of the story as it is an umbrella term for the collections of stories that are told. Tomasso himself likens this to The Twilight Zone in substance but I believe it’ll end up being more like Pulp Fiction with the stories and characters all crossing into one another and we even see a small bit of this towards the end of the issue. There are two stories that make up the first issue, The Red Circle and 7 Deadly Daughters, both of these are going to be ongoing stories that are followed intermittently (I believe that The Red Circle will carry most of the main, overarching thread however).
The Red Circle follows a freelance hit-man, Pete, who sometimes does work for the local mob families as he discovers a bloody dog that leads him to the murder scene of the husband and wife couple that ran most of the nearby gambling schemes. Pete calls a couple of friends, a thief and an ex-corrupt cop just out of jail, to come round and divides up the valuables in the house between them. Now that’s pretty much all that happens there and that’s the problem with this rather ambitious undertaking, because the comic is split into two and has only about 32 pages or so to work with, as stories are introduced we are not given a lot of information or time to explore them. For instance, my first impression was that Pete and his friends were just bland, cut-out characters that were defined by their occupation and the personality that would give them in almost every run-of-the-mill crime novel but then I realised I had little more information bumping into them on the street might give me. I can’t help feel that if this first issue was a few pages longer or not divided (and the dividing between stories coming in later) that would have improved the quality of the book. As for other facets of this first story, I can’t really judge as we’re not given enough information to know where it’s really all going to go but I do like that Pete has this bizarre fondness of animals and the inclusion of an ex-cop (seemingly high-ranking) will be an interesting asset to the story and not one I’ve seen used that often before in crime fiction.
7 Deadly Daughters seems promising in many ways and struck a better cord with me than The Red Circle did, probably because the story it told was more complete and fitted into the format of the book better. 7 Deadly Daughters is planned to be an ongoing tale, which I hope will tie as much into The Red Circle as much as I think it will, about women trying to get revenge on the mob through various means. The story in this issue revolves around two detectives coming into a hospital to interview an old mobster who was recently attacked and left with fatal wounds, most of the time is spent by the mobster recounting how he was attacked. We are told even less about the characters here than in The Red Circle but it doesn’t really matter, all you need to know are the characters roles for it to work and although the story is simple, it introduces the possibility for the direction of the overarching story while still be self-contained. I feel like 7 Deadly Daughters would be great as a story to show up only every couple of issues as it’s the feeling of mystery as to what the seven deadly sisters are, what their motivations consist of and who will they strike at next that makes the idea interesting.
As if trying to write what will surely be a very convoluted world is not a big enough undertaking, Dark Corridor is a one man show, with Rich Tomasso doing both writing and art. The art in and of itself is OK, it tends to remind me of the style you might see in old Archie comics, and my only real problem with that is that everyone has these ridiculously sharp faces with few rounded edges that makes it troublesome to wonder what the characters would look like in real life. Other than that there are some small issues with how people are frequently portrayed in positions that just don’t look comfortable, characters standing in awkward positions is a common sight throughout; all in all the art is pretty good but nothing to write home about.
Dark Corridor is a huge undertaking and I’m interested to see where this rather unique idea will go. Crime stories often have to have slow introductions and I think I can count the ones that pull off a fast-paced intro successfully in one hand, unfortunately this doesn’t translate fantastically to a monthly issue format as it can be up to four months before the ball really gets rolling and often leaves the best crime comics with only a cult following. The set-up of Dark Corridor threatens to exacerbate this problem even more by splitting each issue into two or more stories. I wouldn’t say ignore Dark Corridors completely, it shows tonnes of promise and is to only get better from here on. If you’re OK with a slow burn then absolutely give it a chance and pick it at your local LCS but if you find the story to be lagging then it might be best to watch out for the trade.
