Writer: Christopher Cantwell / Artist: Luca Casalanguida / Boom! Studios
As the narrator exposes all of the different ways the very peculiar mission our lovable band of misfits is on could easily go wrong, there is something electrifying about how Cantwell and Casalanguida continue to blend the write and artwork of this series. The writing has this playfulness to it, a self-aware egregiousness of the absurdity of the situation. The artwork has this casualness to it, the way we leisurely follow a car on a highway on its way to a hospital where an autopsy is being informed. Both come together in how we abruptly jump back in and examine the ever-evolving circumstances of how this situation came to be a problem in the first. The cadence is brilliant, and the rest of the issue continues to be a fantastic read.
With Sonny dead at the end of the last issue, the group doesn’t have too much time to fret as they finally catch news about Kennedy’s assassination over the radio. They deal with some moderate mourning and with the fact that they are somehow implicated in the event given that Sonny’s a lookalike for Lee Harvey Oswald. And thus commences the latest series of shenanigans of transporting the body.
Cantwell and Casalanguida work wonderfully together. When Cantwell’s dialog is short and terse, Casalanguida makes it a point to use smaller panels for each onomatopoeia and expletive to give it its own room to breathe. When the dialog is flowing, the artwork takes up more of the page, and we we’re greeted with larger portraits and crowd shots with a very cinematic quality to their finish.
There are no fights or actions scenes in Regarding the Matter of Oswald’s Body #3 to the degree of the events in the earlier issues, but the tension is still palpable and the stakes are still very much set and understood. This alternative historical fiction constantly leaves the crew and us the reader asking more and more questions, but it keeps everyone engaged with a sense of anticipations. This entire conspiracy is just too self-cannibalizing. There are so many facets at play, and we’re only given so many pieces of the puzzle. But in that tension, there is exhilaration in watching it play out.
Each new issue impresses me more and more, and I eagerly anticipate the last two in the series. The creative team has found a wonderful cadence and the experience has just been fantastic. I can’t wait for the full volume to read the story in its totality and appreciate the wild sandbox Cantwell and Casalanguida have built.
9.5 “Switcharoos” out of 10
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