Writer: Rich Douek / Penciller: Alex Cormack / Letterer: Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou / Editors: Brett Israel, Tara McCarron / Digital Art Technician: Mars Ralston / Collection Design: Hannah Noble / Collects: Drive Like Hell (2024) #1-#4 / TP / Dark Horse Comics
Article by Paul Dunne
24th March 2024 (Released 4th December 2024)
The Pitch: Bobby Ray and Dahlia planned the perfect bank heist and even stole the perfect getaway car. There's just one little problem-it belongs to the devil himself, and he wants it back. Bad. When the job goes wrong, Bobby Ray and Dahlia find themselves embroiled in a high-octane chase across the highways, on the run from demonic cops, satanic bikers, and psychotic religious freaks, all of them after the car, and the mysterious artifact in its trunk. With all the forces of evil on their trail, there's only one thing Bobby Ray and Dahlia can do - Drive Like Hell.
Damn you, Rich Douek! And damn you, Alex Cormack! You've ruined my expectations. I was expecting another bleak horror book, where the character's experience treads the line between psychosis and monster horror. You know, like in the excellent Road of Bones! Or maybe I was expecting another pessimistic slice of shrinking humanity in the face of greed. You know, like in the atmospheric, creepy Sea of Sorrows! Instead, the duo bring us this.
It isn't scary.
It isn't terrifying.
It's fun.
So yeah. After spending their last few team-ups restoring my well-founded lack of faith in humanity, they've decided to remind us that sometimes, this crazy shit we read about in comic books can actually be fun. Starting, as all good stories should, in a dive bar somewhere in nowheresville USA, Drive Like Hell almost tricks you into thinking it's a crime book. It's a trick the book keeps trying to pull, the wily bastard, even going so far as to introduce us to Bobby Ray and Dahlia, two criminals who plan to rob a bank. But Dahlia ends up with a hole in her head, and Bobby Ray is now driving for his life. The only thing is...
The car he's stolen belongs to a demon. And that demon also wants to steal something. Except he's not bothering with First National Bank of wherever. Nope. He's stealing from the archangel Gabriel himself. So now Bobby Ray has a dead passenger on the seat, curtailing both his life of crime and a budding romance, and the forces of hell on his tail. And sometimes regular cops, too! Oh, and Dahlia's just started talking, despite the hole in her head, we'll... Shit, I might as well tell you...
The car talks, too. And not in that condescending, know-it-all KITT way, either. This car needs help! So, now Bobby Ray might just be responsible for the fate of the world and his own ass. Can Bobby Ray step up?
I'm not going to give away too many of the twists and hairpin turns the book takes, because that would annoying for all of us. Suffice it to say, the comic is short, fast and funny. Douek decides to just go for it and write pretty much everyone as a self-serving egotistical asshole and I always think there's great pleasure to be had in watching and reading assholes, especially since it serves as a reminder not to be one yourself! Ego and ill-temper are fun to watch. Anger is an energy and all that. The more characters Bobby Ray and Dahlia encounter, the more they start to look like the real angels of the piece. At its core, Drive Like Hell has a strong moral core and tells us that objects have a life and sentence that whilst it may be something we imprint on them, might just be no less valid than our own. Douek continues to craft interesting, dark stories about people you shouldn't like or have compassion for, but end up doing so anyway. He often exposes people's base greed, either for money or just for their own survival, but here the need seems to be for freedom. But also, the money helps! That said, Bobby Ray and Dahlia might be the purest Douek and Cormack protagonists yet.
Speaking of Cormack, he's on top form here. Like Sergio Leone directing Vanishing Point, he makes faces his landscape and when needed, he racks back to let the serious vehicular action happen. Everything and everyone in the book is constantly on the move, squirming, running, speeding from whatever's about to drive up their asses and ruin their day. His expression and physical movement are excellent and fair play to him, he has to draw a ton of cars in this. And as I understand, artists are never fond of having to draw cars. Thinking about it, cars - like comics - are an American art form, so maybe it's horses and crowds I'm thinking of. Anyway, he draws it with abandon and fury. Add to this his atmospheric, blood and fire colouring and you have a unique-looking book that crowds your eye with colour and action. Otsmane-Elhaou creates an excellent soundscape, giving both ears and eyes a feast. He really shows off his talent for making sound effects part of the architecture of the panel. Now, are we having fun yet, or what?
Drive Like Hell is at your local comic shop now!
