By J. Paul Schiek — Adulting is hard. Bills, mortgages, insurance, mortgage insurance bills? But adulting also has a way of making one forget how hard it is to be a teenager. It’s a whole other framework of concerns, much of it centered around a rapidly expanding worldview, and the dissolution of that chrysalis of childhood illusions that diminishes with equal quickness. Then adulthood sweeps in like a giant chalkboard eraser and leaves just a faint pressure outline of all that poetry journal worthy heartache and pain and throws up a new equation, just as unsolvable as the last. 

I say all that to say this: As universal (and as needful) as that ostensible amnesia is, it is clear that writer Justin Richards, in his comic book debut Finger Guns #1, has forgotten very little of what it’s like to be stuck in that horrific romantic tragicomedy/first person shooter that is one’s teenage years. Moreover, he’s brought Val Halvorson (Death Of The Horror Anthology, The Sequels), Rebecca Nalty (She Said Destroy) and Taylor Esposito (Babyteeth) along, and they’ve got their Finger Guns pointed at the pulse-throbbing temple of teenage misery and neglect.

If there’s a list of comics out there with brilliant first pages, Finger Guns belongs on that list. Richards and Halvorson establish all the thematic information we need to really unlock this book right there on the first page. It’s five short panels, four of them entirely wordless, laid out in a beautiful sort of symmetry that belies depicted polarity of brash overconfidence and embarrassing optics inherent to public high school attendance. 

Wes, one of two central characters to this story, licks his lips and points his finger gun at the scrawled homework assignment on the chalkboard. “You know that’s not going to change anything,” his teacher admonishes. And maybe he’s right. On this page, at least, but Wes’s finger gun (fingers gun might be nearer the mark, as Wes seems to prefer the girth of the wider two finger barrel) very quickly becomes the stone in the very tasty pot of stone soup to follow (Stone Soup, btw, is a European folk story in which hungry strangers convince the people of a town to each share a small amount of their food in order to make a meal that everyone enjoys, and exists as a moral regarding the value of sharing). It is also apparent from this first page what a perfect marriage Halvorson’s line art is for this more-adult-than-young-adult YA story.

Without giving away too many spoilers, the story itself centers around Wes, a young man who lives—at least nominally—with his international businessman father who thinks that pizza money is the same thing as parenting. We’re only a very short way in when Wes’s proclivity for pointing his finger gun at things starts to bear dark dividends. His experiments lead Wes to the discovery of an inexplicable power to make people irrationally angry for a short time, just with a simple zap of his finger guns. His dark measures are countered soon enough by Sadie (Saudade), who possesses a similar power, albeit with a pleasantly opposite effect. Sade is at once a sharp contrast to Wes’s brand of angry hurt. If Wes is a symbol for suppressed emotional pain, then Sade is very much a symbol for the peacekeeping nature of a codependency. 

The two of them strike up a terse friendship which is itself mirrored by the terse verbiage within the story. Richards does not rely upon narrative boxes to carry readers through time and space, choosing instead to rely entirely upon Halvorson’s innate visual storytelling abilities and staccato blips of conversation and dialog. Initially, this felt like something of a setback. While the art itself does a fantastic job of telling the story, the brevity of written word on the page left the eye little time to linger from panel to panel. It does, however, ring true to the ear not just in what teenagers say, but how they say it. Arguably, the CIA had an easier time interrogating Manuel Noriega than the average parent has finding out how their child’s day went at school (I teach beginning photography to middle schoolers and can attest to their economic use of words and facial expressions). 

The pacing from thereout goes through periods of ebb and flow, never faltering over a mislaid panel or ambiguous dialog balloon. We have Taylor Esposito to thank for the latter, who is, by and large, the thinking person’s letterer. Too, Rebecca Nalty’s colors reinforce the psychology of the story magnificently, ranging from sickly greens and yellows to rich, angry reds and passive blues that are jarring and calming when they need to be. The solid primary color shapes and soft gradients are a stunning contrast from the more pastel palette used in her recent work on She Said Destroy (also published by Vault).

If I have one gripe with this book it’s to do with the cliffhanger ending. Not that I have a problem with cliffhanger endings in general, but, where the rest of the book uses conclusive moments to punctuate the different story acts, the final beat ends with an indication of intent, but not a real sense of clarity around that intent. All the same, this is a remarkable debut from Richards, and a beautiful collective work from rising and established talents both. Vault Comics has long had my attention and admiration as a publisher that is not afraid to make, amplify, or otherwise stand behind or beside bold statements, and Finger Guns is a bold statement for those who suffer in sulky silence in emotionally empty homes and classrooms.

Overall: Vault Comics has long had my attention and admiration as a publisher that is not afraid to make, amplify, or otherwise stand behind or beside bold statements, and Finger Guns is a bold statement for those who suffer in sulky silence in emotionally empty homes and classrooms. 9.0/10

Finger Guns #1
Script: Justin Richards
Line Art: Val Halvorson
Colors: Rebecca Nalty
Lettering: Taylor Esposito
Publisher: Vault Comics
Price: $3.99
Release Date: February 26, 2020

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J. Paul Schiek is a freelance comic artist. He’s currently hard at work on a number of projects, but always looking for more.