Writer: Declan Shalvey / Penciller: Gavin Fullerton / Colour Artist: Rebecca Nalty / Letterer: Clayton Cowles / Editor: Heather Antos / TP / Image Comics
30th May 2020 (Released: 27th May 2020)
Review by Paul Dunne
The Pitch: An Irish gangster on the run after a job gone wrong stumbles upon a young woman lost in the Dublin mountains. Injured and unarmed, the unlikely pair must try to evade their pursuers and survive the desolate bog that has served as a burial ground for unspeakable murder throughout history.
There's always a weird disconnect when reading a book co-created by someone you know. I've met Declan a couple of times. He struck me as a decent guy, excited by his art and the opportunities it had given him, to work in comics, and to create books that people enjoyed. He was – and is – personable, charming. But as I started to read more of his work, I became confused. His comics were full of darkness. Dodgy people committing dodgy acts. They didn't feel like they came from the guy I'd met. I guess that's why he's so good at what he does. People aren't what they seem. In talking about Declan, this sentence is a good thing. We might hate him if he was like his characters. But most of the time... Most of the time 'people aren't what they seem' is a sentence that fills you with dread. People aren't what they seem in Shalvey & Gavin Fullerton's Bog Bodies. Get ready to be filled with dread.
The main characters are Killian and Keano, two small-time gangsters who work for a man who wants to be big-time and has a ruthlessness to match his ambitions. Tonight, Keano and Killian are off on a job, to dump a body. Someone who has run afoul of their boss. Irish pop-fiction is full of hapless duos sent to do the bidding of nasty men. In fact, it follows a fine tradition of hapless Irish duos for whom there is a lot more under the surface, not just of their actions but of their lives. You can see this in a lot of Irish cinema: I Went Down, Adam & Paul, In Bruges, Garage... there's something about this set-up that lends itself to the musicality of Irish dialogue, slang and the earthy philosophical musings of a certain type of character.
Of course, nothing goes right for Killian and Keano. To give away the twists and turns that this story takes would be, well... criminal. I went in cold to this book and loved it all the more for that as each reveal peels back layers of unknown pleasures. Shalvey creates a skeleton and layers on muscle and tissue. Gavin Fullerton sprays on the skin, making the people that stalk their way through this story look haunted and hollow. His expressions communicate the moral pain of the things these people have to do. When they smile, they leer. They're horrible, yet emphatic. Nalty's colours paint these faces in greys and earthy shades, making them resemble the clay of the bog they find themselves in. The occasional splashes of colours come as surprises, like bright headlights on a dark road. You may be temporarily blinded. Reading the beautiful dialogue, the amusing asides and the song of the voices is made all the more pleasurable and believable because of Clowes' letters. He carries the emotion through each word expertly. Heather Antos holds the whole thing together as editor, keeping the book tight. Though it's a slender volume, the book is packed with incident and feels organic and alive. But be careful. People may not be what they seem.
