Plot: Goon with big arm runs the classic crime numbers.

Comments: Virgin Comics is an odd bird, where else could you find Deepak Chopra, Jenna Jameson and Dave Stewart in the same place except maybe the Playboy mansion’s Grotto. One of their big moves is to court movie talent to the medium, so in the fine Hollywood tradition we get some name dropping: Nic Cage, John Woo, Guy Ritchie and Ed Burns!

Wait, Ed Burns, the guy who did the Brother’s McMullen? He doesn’t seem like a very comic book type guy to me. Maybe, deep down, he’s a real comic book fan. On his bookshelf between scripts for “Ash Wednesday” and “Purple Violets” is a Fantastic Four Omnibus or all the trade paperbacks for Preacher. Does Ed Burns really want to write comic books?

Well, no, not really but it seems he wanted to do something different than what he’s known for. So at the cross roads of Virgin Comics and Ed Burns we get Dock Walloper. Capitalizing on the recent comeback of crime comics Dock Walloper gets real old school by going back to a time before comics were even called “Funny Books”; prohibition era New York. This seems obvious after the fact, with all the hard boiled criminals and stoic badasses in crime fiction it’s a wonder why no one has ever explored what could be considered the golden age of gangsters (though there might have been a Dracula vs. Al Capone comic last year, I don’t think that was firmly based in any kind of actual event). Maybe because the images we get from that time have reached a point of cartoonish parody but it seems like ripe territory to explore in the right hands and if it strikes the right tone.

Gangster drama usually has a particular formula; the meteoric rise and bloody fall (unless you’re the Sopranos then you have onion rings). Young smart and ambitious kid makes a name for himself in organized crime rises to number one (or close to it), somehow gets romantically involved with the wrong dame, throw in crooked cops and politicians, a bloodthirsty adversary and eventually it all comes down around him in failure or a hail of gunfire. This is the formula from GoodFellas to Scarface. Dock Walloper seems to be faithfully following that formula. The main character, John Smith, is a smart man that by issue #2 has the ear of the Irish mob boss “Mad Dog” Madden and of course has eyes for Madden’s moll Cora and yes Italian mobster “Diamond” Jack is gunning for him. Right now he and his buddy Bootsie are on the rise, it’s only a question of when the fall will start and what form it will take. There are some nice twists on the formula: Bootsie, John’s best friend from the orphanage, is black and in the 1920 that’s bound to cause problems. In fact, you are reminded at several points about this roadblock. John is loyal to Bootsie but there are clues as to what the future will hold on this plot point. Also John has an oversized right hand which gives origin to his mobster nickname “The Hand” (I guess all the cool nicknames were used up at “Mad Dog”). Why and will this be relevant in the future, I don’t know. If in crime stories the main character is symbolic of America, I’m not sure what this means, maybe its representative of California. The action steps outside of formula and into the comic book realm with an extended sequence of John squaring off against some of Diamond Jack’s goons on the top of an elevated train. The sequence is exciting and fun and a welcome example of what the comic medium can do that would be cost prohibitive in a film or TV. Presumably Ed Burns always wanted to do some action sequences and with the help of Palmiotti he gets to fulfill that desire.

The art is done well, if stylized, the look evokes more feeling than realism (not a bad thing) the color pallet is subdued with mostly earth tones and a dash of color here and there (mostly blood). I think there is an attempt to invoke the look and mood of Criminal, the current gold standard of crime comics.

All in all if you’re into crime books Dock Walloper is worth a gander it feels familiar in form and style but has the potential to jump off from the safe zone into more challenging territory. I can feel a really good, if not great, comic somewhere in there. It just needs to find a way out. In any event I don’t see any onion rings in its immediate future.

"Who is Bloody Mary?"

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