Advanced Comics Review: "BIG GUNS STUPID REDNECKS #3" Raises the Stakes

BIG GUNS STUPID REDNECKS #3 (OF 3)

BAND OF BARDS

STORY: Austin Allen Hamblin

ART: Mariana Meira

COLORS: Mariana Meira

LETTERS: John Ira Thomas

EDITOR: Chuck Satterlee

COVER: Mariana Meira

VARIANT COVER: Trey Baldwin

Color, $4.99 U.S. (November 2024)

Rated: “Teen”

Big Guns Stupid Rednecks is a three-issue miniseries written by Austin Allen Hamblin and drawn and colored by Mariana Meira.  Published by Band of Bards, the series focuses on a retired lawman who fights to the death in order to entertain an alien television audience.  Letterer John Ira Thomas completes the series' creative team.

Big Guns Stupid Rednecks focuses on Clint, a retired police detective who was investigating a string of unexplained disappearances in the southern part of the United States.  One of the missing was Clay, Clint's younger brother by twelve years.  The search resulted in Clint being abducted... by aliens.  Intergalactic cable's biggest hit show is “Big Guns Stupid Rednecks” (BGSR), and the alien producers need a steady supply of rednecks, which they get by kidnapping humans.  Clint is the latest combatant.

Big Guns Stupid Rednecks #3 opens with a celebration of “Big Guns Stupid Rednecks'” anniversary program, and the celebratory anniversary match is a doozy.  It's Clint versus... his brother Clay?!  But isn't Clay dead?  Well, that's alien science for ya!  And Clay is out for blood, while Clint has no idea of what's to come.  Plus, Oweful, the alien creator of “Big Guns Stupid Rednecks,” has a deadly surprise for everyone.

THE LOWDOWN:  Series writer Austin Allen Hamblin hooked me up with a PDF review copy of Big Guns Stupid Rednecks #3.  It is the third Band of Bards publication that I have read.

Hamblin has delivered a pleasant ending to this pleasantly surprising series.  For BGSR, he recreated some of the irreverent and edgy humor that readers found in such venerable sci-fi/fantasy anthologies as Heavy Metal and 2000AD over the last five decades.  Hamblin did all that and set up this three-issue miniseries so that it can give birth to a media franchise.  The ending here does not have to be an ending, and that's what I want – more rednecks.

Mariana Meira's art is stylish and visually appealing.  Her storytelling is solid and captures the exciting nature of Hamblin's script.  Meira's menagerie of alien beings also recalls the early years of Jaime Hernandez's “Locas” stories in Love and Rockets.  It is in that strangeness of aliens that meets with the strangeness of outsider humanity.  She spins this weird yarn into its surprise ending, which hopefully will give her a chance to expand the concept in the (near) future.

Yes, Big Guns Stupid Rednecks is not perfect, but it is perfectly grounded in the cool weirdness of comic books.  Big Guns Stupid Rednecks #3 promises that there can be bigger guns and stupider rednecks.  Some of us want that.

I READS YOU RECOMMENDS:  Fans of outrageous sci-fi comedy and of 2000AD will want to give Big Guns Stupid Rednecks a try.

A-

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"

https://bandofbards.com/

Austin Allen Hamblin:

Website: www.hamblincomics.com

Fanpage: https://www.facebook.com/AustinAllenHamblin

Online Store: https://www.etsy.com/shop/HamblinComics

The text is copyright © 2024 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

---------------------

Amazon wants me to inform/remind you that any affiliate links found on this page are PAID ADS, but I technically only get paid (eventually) if you click on affiliate links like these, BOOKS PAGE, GRAPHIC NOVELS, or MANGA PAGE and BUY something(s).