Comic Review: Fairlady #2

Fairlady #2

Image Comics

Writer: Brian Schirmer

Art:  Claudia Balboni & Marissa Louise

After posing as a man to fight in the war, Jenner Faulds returns home, The Feld, and becomes a Fairman, a licensed private investigator. Being the only Fairlady, Jenner gets the cases none of the other Fairmen will take. Along with her partner Oanu. Image Comics’ new series gives us detective stories within a fantastical universe and it is looking quite promising.

This issue covers yet another of Jenner’s cases. This time she ends up being hired by the widow of a fellow Fairman to investigate and prove that her husband didn’t die by the flames of a dragon, as it was told her. The protagonist then heads to question The Feld’s other Fairmen and constabulary in order to get to the bottom of this mystery.

Schirmer’s writing of a private investigator and the mysteries they investigate is on point. As a huge fan of those, I’m deeply glad the series is going for the single-issue cases rather than extending them throughout whole story arcs. Despite Schirmer’s ability showing that would work well also, I believe the current approach is better especially for these first few issues which count more for world building and character development. We do get tiny hints of the protagonist’s past and the war but the comic never deviates too far from the current case, keeping Jenner Faulds’ character as obscure and instigating as the best detective novel would.

The comic’s backgrounds mostly don’t show up whenever we’re supposed to be absorbed by character’s dialogue (only a general background color is shown). But when they do they’re composed purely by jaw-dropping sceneries. The level of detail applied to those is stunning and they drag the reader inside the comic by establishing an amazing atmosphere. Louise’s color work complements Balboni’s traces as if they’re supposed to be put together. The lighting in this series is perfectly crafted as the colors contribute to the atmosphere mentioned above. The colorist’s work also gives the characters’ clothing wrinkles and textures. Although the series hasn’t focused much on action scenes yet, I’m confident when it does the scenes will be sublime. I think that because the art team makes the effort to portray action and motion in a very convincing and charming way. Sudden and violent movements (punches or flying projectiles) are shown with big groups of speed lines while gracious ones (wind on hair and clothes) are portrayed with static images but always in a convincingly consistent form, composing beautiful panels when they happen.

Fantasy elements combined with greatly written mystery cases accompanied by gorgeous visuals. These are the main components of both Fairlady issues released so far, meaning I’m gonna pick up the next one with huge enthusiasm and I recommend this immensely to anyone who likes detective stories.