GNG Tackles Gun Street Girl
By Dan Brown SPOILER WARNING: This column contains plot details, so if you value surprise, stop reading here! The L.A. Mood Graphic-Novel Group met Saturday, February 14 and this is what happened in our hour-long meeting. The book: Gun Street Girl, written by Barb Lien-Cooper, and illustrated by Ryan Howe. Published by London’s Lucha Comics. The discussion: In our lightning round – every group member gets two minutes to give their overall impressions of the book at the start of each session – it was clear most of us enjoyed Gun Street Girl and found something to appreciate about it. The central characters are Liz, a bodyguard, her boss, Eddie Caution, a paranormal investigator, and Prana, who is Liz’s girlfriend. Eddie hires Liz to be his muscle on paranormal adventures. The action takes place in England, specifically London, so will please Anglophiles (there are several scenes in a pub), and follows the pair as they encounter such monsters as demons, trolls and a baby griffin – so if you’re versed in Dungeons & Dragons or Harry Potter lore, you’ll already have the basic vocabulary down. I guess Gun Street Girl would fall into the urban fantasy genre. What I found fascinating is that despite the title, which is taken from a Tom Waits song, the reader hardly ever sees Liz at work. Her fights mostly take place offstage. In fact, if my memory serves, there’s maybe one panel in the whole collection showing Liz firing her gun. What this means is, the focus is not on violence or gore. I think the heart of the book is the back-and-forth between Liz and Eddie, who is Liz’s guide to the supernatural. It felt to me like a really good workplace sitcom. The very first chapter, for instance, starts in medias res – Liz and Eddie have been captured by a wizard and must figure a way to avoid impending doom. Other stories in Gun Street Girl aren’t about jump scares, but a slow burn of suspense. There’s also a great sense of humour pervading the whole book, which helped me as a reader to accept the premise. It’s a way for the creative team to wink at the audience, allowing readers to suspend their disbelief. So even though the cover (which evokes Alan Davis for me), depicts Liz blasting her way out of a door with tentacles slithering out of it, the thrust of this collection is the relationship between the two leads. What could a lesbian monster assassin and a crusty, over-the-hill mage possibly have in common? One of our other points of discussion was how the dialogue gets better the deeper you get into the book. I figure any creative team takes some time to establish the characters in any given story. I would readily recommend Gun Street Girl. You’ll find it in L.A. Mood on the rack reserved for books and comics with a local connection. A second volume looks to be coming this year, which I can’t wait for. L.A. Mood’s Graphic-Novel Group meets the second Saturday of every month. Next month’s selection is The Goon: Bunch of Old Crap by Eric Powell. I know little about the Goon, so I’m looking forward to learning more about this long-lived Dark Horse Comics title, which goes all the way back to the 1990s. We’re set to meet March 14 at the gaming tables in the store at 11 a.m. All are welcome to join the discussion! Dan Brown has covered pop culture for more than 32 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly graphic-novel group.
