Blowtorch: Bad Roads #2 - Page1 Comics

BLOWTORCH: BAD ROADS No. 2, February 2024

It’s hard to imagine many readers perusing their local comic book store’s spinner racks and encountering a more downright brutal plot as the one Alfred Paige and Alex De-Gruchy collaboratively pen for Issue Two of “Blowtorch: Bad Roads”. Indeed, this twenty-two-page periodical arguably just picks its audience up by the scruff of the neck with it’s opening scene of a chairbound Richard Kinkaid being battered about the head, and simply never lets go until its blood-soaked bibliophiles are eventually brought back to the relative peacefulness of C.H.E.S.S. Headquarters in Colorado at its very end; “How was Bluegrass Country.? That good, huh…?”

Happily however, this excessive violence isn’t just gratuitous padding to help populate the publication. But actually shows how mercilessly murderous the Crime Cartel are who have abducted Blowtorch, and the sheer deadliness of the ex-Army Ranger they’ve foolishly decided to keep alive for questioning. Furthermore, the sense-shattering shenanigans employed by both sides of this contest to try and eliminate one another makes for some utterly compelling, high-octane action that results in this magazine being impossible to put down until the desperate gun battle is finally finished.

Perhaps this comic’s most compelling feature though, is that its titular character isn’t quite portrayed as an unstoppable, one-man killing machine, and instead actually requires the help of an undercover Drugs Enforcement Agent (DEA) for assistance. Admittedly, Will initially appears to free Kinkaid from a local barn simply to improve his own chances of escape now the investigator is convinced he’s “gonna end up at the bottom of a goddamn quarry.” Yet this basic show of compassion quickly blossoms into the man becoming Richard’s unlikely gun-toting comrade-in-arms – something which helps add to the increasing concern as to whether both government operatives are going to successfully survive the blazing firefight around them.

Likewise, Igor Kurilin’s marvellous black and white layouts do a first-rate job in capturing all the claustrophobic horror of a savage night-time shoot-out in and around a house. In fact, once Blowtorch has finally donned his famous flame-throwers, each prodigiously-pencilled panel provides a terrifying insight into just how dreadful it must be for anyone, even a heartless hoodlum, to be backed into a tiny room, crammed full of everyday furniture, and facing so inhumanly painful a fiery demise.

Creator: Alfred Paige, Script: Alex De-Gruchy, and Art: Igor Kurilin

Blowtorch: Bad Roads #1 - Page1 Comics

BLOWTORCH: BAD ROADS No. 1, November 2023

Described in its solicitation synopsis as “the bare-knuckled, rough and tumble, gritty, bloody crime thriller you’ve been waiting for”, Alex De-Gruchy’s script for Issue One of “Blowtorch: Bad Roads” definitely lives up to its promise of being an utterly uncompromising twenty-two-page periodical packed full of savage violence and edge-of-your-seat shenanigans. In fact, arguably ensnaring something of Derek Kolstad’s neo-noir action franchise “John Wick”, this comic should captivate its audience’s attention just as soon as the ex-military mercenary’s sport utility vehicle is stolen from a petrol station and its owner menacingly vows to track the thieves down.

Delightfully though, Alfred Paige’s mask-wearing creation doesn’t simply wade into the local criminals’ hideout all guns blazing as some less well fleshed out characters might do, and instead initially bides his time watching his opponents – even when the gang’s leader mercilessly cuts the throat of one hapless fellow hoodlum who unwisely was stealing drugs money from him; “Make sure they weigh him down enough, I don’t want his bones ever seeing the light a’ day.” This patient approach makes the subsequent firefight all the more genuine and believable, especially when its generated by the C.H.E.S.S. operative understandably thinking that a helplessly bound boy in a wooden shed is probably a prisoner, rather than the boss’s disconcertingly loyal lad.

Of course the big pull for any perusing bibliophiles is the insane action which occurs once Blowtorch heads for his pilfered vehicle and starts gunning down anyone foolish enough to get in his way. Rather excitingly, this exchange of bullets does not go all one way either, as Richard encounters much more resistance than he was anticipating. Indeed, one of this book’s best moments comes after the cold-blooded killer is back in the seat of his beloved SUV and attempting to make an unsuccessful drive for freedom.

Equally as good at pencilling as De-Gruchy and Paige are story-telling is Igor Kurilin, whose black and white panels add a distinctly dark and foreboding night-time ambience to the publication’s layouts. The illustrator proves especially good at capturing all the last second decision-making that takes place within the former soldier’s mind, as events increasingly grow out-of-hand due to more and more of Conroy’s heavily-armed minions congregating upon his progressively perilous position outside a farmhouse.

Creator: Alfred Paige, Script: Alex De-Gruchy, and Art: Igor Kurilin