Review – Fistful of Blood #4 (of 4) (IDW Publishing)

Publisher: IDW Publishing
Writer: Kevin Eastman
Artist: Simon Bisley
Release Date: 10th February 2016

The latest issue of ‘Fistful of Blood’ is the final instalment of this four-part series from Kevin Eastman and Simon Bisley. As the title suggests – a play on words that homages one of Clint Eastwood’s most infamous Western films, ‘Fistful of Dollars’ – this is a very cinematic comic. In addition to classic Westerns, the book is a pulpy cocktail of 70s grindhouse cinema and 80s B-movie horror films.

Loosely based on Eastwood’s character in ‘Fistful of Dollars’, our protagonist is a mute woman who stumbles onto a disused movie-set in the desert, maintained by a lone family caught in an uneasy truce between vampires and zombies. A literal tourist trap, the warring factions of the undead are stirred into violence upon the nameless woman’s arrival. The woman, in nought but a negligee, singlehandedly fends off the fiends before refusing requests to join each side. We don’t really learn any more about her character in the first three issues aside from the fact that she’s a walking oxymoron: an ass-kicking woman who can handle herself, but who also happens to look like a perpetually underdressed Barbie on steroids…

In this final issue, we finally discover the true identity of the woman, and her real reason for heading into town, when she finally steps in to save the human family from the carnage caused when a group of bikers arrive on the set. This brings a whole new dimension – literally – to the comic, along with a brand new genre to add to the mix.

The cinematic theme, particularly the grindhouse angle, is channelled through the artwork. Eastman’s original comic, published in ‘Death Metal’ magazine over fifteen years ago, has been extended and re-mastered with the help of Bisley. In outlining Eastman’s original drawings, Bisley creates bold lines and heavily shadowed panels, which are then lifted by colourist Tomi Varga’s mix of cool blue tones and dusty, ruddy reds. The final look is gritty and grimy; the panels look like they have been sandblasted by the desert itself, making the garish colours of the SFX pop in all of their retro 80s B-movie glory.

Bearing in mind that the story was conceived fifteen years ago, before various other incarnations of its themes – the 2011 film ‘Cowboys vs. Aliens’ is a prime example – it’s a fun, violent series of few words that genre fans will appreciate. In fact, in the extra features (which mostly consist of character art development), Eastman reveals that he would like to take the concept to the big screen, so we may be seeing more of his Western world in due course.

Rating: 4/5.

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