Finger Guns #4 is out August 5, 2020. — **Finger Guns #4** is out August 5, 2020.

By Jacob Cordas — There came a moment in Finger Guns #4 when our two protagonists are in the kind of fight you only have in high school. They are returning from a field trip to an aquarium sitting separate on the bus and sending texts to argue. This text argument is done over one panel with no border and no backdrop color. You can’t even see our main characters. All you see is a school bus moving forward regardless of limitations or directions with text boxes surrounding it. It’s quiet and personal. It’s sad and lonely. It’s everything I remember about my high school experience pushed into one boundless panel. It’s all the best parts of this comic rolled into one little moment.

Finger Guns #4 excels in these intimate details. When the characters are just talking and walking, the comic feels so accurate and honest. Writer Justin Richards has an incredible ear for the way teenagers languish inside of themselves. He can express that beautifully. The conversation where Wes and Sadie stroll through the aquarium is a textbook example of this in action.

The art from Val Halvroson with coloring from Rebecca Nalty help accentuate this bringing a cross between the modern Archie Comics sensibility and Bryan Lee O'Malley’s work on the Scott Pilgrim series to this title. I love the art they are able to make here.

I am especially a fan of the single use color backdrops. It brings a real sense of intimacy to each moment and highlights a universality to those panels. Everything seems bigger and yet more personal. It reminds me a lot of the way black box theatre can effectively remove everything to create a metaphor far more powerful than any reality.

The lettering, by the excellent Taylor Esposito, brings all these small moments together. It says something when the highlight moment of the comic is a bus and lettering. And Esposito brings everything he has to not just that page but every page.

However, the comic begins to fall apart when it starts drifting towards the more action-oriented sequences.

It isn’t so much that the team can’t handle these moments. The art team is there for it. The letterer is there for it. It is more of a structural issue. This is a series predicated on two teens desire to control the emotions of those around them to deal with various different manifestations of abandonment. When it devolves into sensationalized violence, which this issue does, it betrays that intimacy that made the other moments so strong.

Ending on a big shock of violence, like this issue does, is a real slap in the face to the very same moments and, I’d argue, belittles the trauma of what Sadie is going through. It turns her suffering into a twist to be resolved in the next issue instead of another moment of betrayal in a long stream of them.

They seem to try to be trying to push Finger Guns towards a more conventional indie comic, which only hurts it. This comic is beautiful when quiet and personal. I wish we could get more of that.

And I really hope we do.

Overall: Finger Guns #4 is an occasionally great comic that tries just a little too hard to fit in with what the indie market looks like today. It truly sings it when it stands out, though, and I hope it leans more into it as the story progresses. 7/10

Finger Guns #4 - REVIEW

Finger Guns #4
Writer: Justin Richards
Artist: Val Halvroson
Colorist: Rebecca Nalty
Letterer: Taylor Esposito
Publisher: Vault Comics
A field trip will see Wes and Sadie's friendship tested to the BREAKING point! .
Release Date: August 05, 2020
Buy It Digitally: Finger Guns #4

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My name is Jacob Cordas (@jacweasel) and I am not qualified to write this.