Punk Mambo #1 - Valiant Entertainment

PUNK MAMBO No. 1, April 2019

As an opening foray into the mystifying world of Haitian Voodoo, Cullen Bunn’s script for Issue One of “Punk Mambo” arguably proved itself to be an excellent start to the British magic-user’s first-ever solo series in April 2019, by hurling its audience straight in at the deep end with a bout of pulse-pounding pugilism against a redneck tribe of lycanthrope-like cannibals. Indeed, such is the breathless, panting pace of its plot that many readers of this twenty-page periodical doubtless found themselves halfway through the publication before they even knew it.

Fortunately however, that doesn’t mean that the Eisner Award-nominee’s narrative is simply composed of one long fight scene, as the titular character’s encounter with Mama Grunch and her fearsomely-fanged babies contains so much more than an endless carousel of gratuitously-sketched panels populated with all manner of bodily eviscerations, mutilations and disintegrations. Yet it is hard not to enjoy the black-humoured banter as Victoria Greaves-Trott and her large, pink-hued spectral blob, literally tear apart a pack of savagely feral killers who have foolishly abducted some of the priestess’s New Orleans-based acquaintances with the intention of eating them… and perhaps utilising a few of their boiled bones as innovative pieces of costume jewellery.

Interestingly, despite Mambo’s ‘hard-as-nails’ bravado and evident super-natural ability to summon a lethally-sharp Reaper-blade out of thin air, the Cape Fear-born writer still manages to ‘wrong-foot’ his audience during this entrails-extracting kerfuffle by suddenly ridding the Mohawk-sporting protagonist of her super-strong 'Loa of doors and barriers and relentless beatings' just at the very finale of the fisticuffs. Ultimately, this shocking disappearance doesn’t detrimentally impact upon Punk’s spell-casting skills or the gore-spattered result of her battle with Grunch Road’s less desirable residents, but it does enthrallingly then lead into this comic’s more richly-penned second half, which quite wonderfully takes any perusing bibliophile by the hand so as to start exploring the heart of voodoo country.

Perhaps slightly less successful than Bunn’s storyline is Adam Gorham’s artwork, which whilst initially packed with all the detailed dynamic energy one might expect from a freelancer, who at the time of publication was confident enough to ask $500 for an original India ink on a 11" x 17' bristol, still debatably appears a little too rushed and undisciplined in places; especially towards this book’s end when the Canadian pencils Mambo stalking the disconcertingly bare-looking streets of a supposedly densely-populated marketplace.

Writer: Cullen Bunn, Artist: Adam Gorham, and Colors: Jose Villarrubia