Stringers

JUSTIN GREENWOOD is an artist best known for his work on comic book series like Stumptown, Compass, The Old Guard, and Crone. As a freelance artist, he has worked with many companies including Image Comics, Oni Press, Dark Horse Comics, Ten Speed series Press/Penguin Random House, Sideshow Collectibles, Amazon, RadicalMedia, ABC Studios, and the Golden State Warriors. Greenwood was also an executive producer on the ABC television Stumptown, based on the Oni Press comic book. When not drawing, you can find him hanging with his wife and kids around the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas.Ryan Hill lives in North Hills, California and has worked in comics in some form or another for over a decade. He’s been coloring for the last few years and hopes he’s good at it. He knows Dex tends to roam around Alberta a lot but thinks at some point she should try drinking North around 50th and Division ‘cause that’s his favorite bar.

LIBRARY JOURNAL - While the stars of action plotsare often lawmen or spies, this time a couple of loose-cog Los Angeles-basedvideographers come into focus. The sensible Paul plus wild card Nick make anunlikely freelance team who churn out network-worthy city crisis footage despiteinterpersonal squabbling and edge-bending driving, earning grudging respect fromhard-ass news boss Michelle. But when the team blunders into a covert dealbetween drug dealers and cops-or are they?-both sides want the duo's evidenceand their hides. Writer/producer Guggenheim (Arrow) crafts the dialogwith up-yours snark, more than matched by Greenwood's (The Fuse)well-designed, kinetic grittiness. Greenwood pulls major drama from thehigh-octane car chases, and his facial work dramatizes the dark humor of thecharacters. Hill's color choices-tans through reds, adding blues for certainsettings-keep the action striking and clear. For a change, the novel's soundeffects are run-on descriptive phrases such as“BallsOutChaseAt90MPH” rather than onomatopoetic standbys such as“VRROOOM.”VERDICTThe stringers' irreverent exploits will delight both fans of TV police dramassuch as The Shield and other readers fond of dirty-edged urban crime withlots of mayhem.-MC