By Zack Quaintance — All of the ingredients that have made me a fan of Kyle Starks’ comics can be found in this week’s new release, The Six Sidekicks of Trigger Keaton #1. Starks is again teaming here with a clever artist who has a finely-honed knack for visual gags. This time it’s his past collaborator Chris Schweizer (from the supremely underrated Mars Attacks comic), after Starks most recently worked with Erica Henderson on the also supremely underrated, Assassin Nation comic. The new book also has a varied cast for Starks to give ridiculous names and personalities. And, perhaps most importantly, the central figure of this book is an out-of-touch tough guy who takes himself so seriously that he becomes a joke.

Whereas past books written and sometimes illustrated by Starks in this vain have involved a nunchunk weilding action star, a hobo who makes a deal with the devil so he can’t lose a fight, a vampire-slaying ex-basketball tough guy, and a hierarchy of ranked assassins, The Six Sidekicks of Trigger Keaton #1 revolves around stuntmen, or former stuntmen. The premise of the book is that Trigger Keaton (think Chuck Norris as Walker Texas Ranger) has died, and his former TV sidekicks — who have varied relationships and feelings about Keaton — are sorting through the aftermath, with promo for the book promising it all will peak in a “stuntman war”, which we don’t see yet in this first issue.

If this combo of elements is getting old, it doesn’t really show up in this book. The premise takes something that’s both tough and goofy so seriously that you can’t help but laugh throughout. The characters are also well-drawn and excellently disparate. There’s a bit less commonality between them than something like Assassin Nation, where they were all assassins with relatively similar goals. Instead, the various sidekicks of Trigger Keaton in this book range from reluctant to zealous to regretful, and they all have different feelings about his death and the subsequent investigation, or whether it should even warrant investigation, given he was such a total #(@&.

This book is also a bit messier than something like Assassin Nation, although it’s not necessarily a bad thing, not yet anyway. There’s a lot of characters to juggle in this first issue, which can be a little overwhelming at times, especially given as I mentioned that they are all so different. There’s a good entry point character here, but it’s easy for interest to deviate from them to other characters. The book actually invites it.

Still, we end the first chapter in a good and clear place, and with the setup done, it’s entirely possible that what I’ve read here as a bit of messiness is just an effect of throwing so many fun pins into the air. The real show will be how the book continues to juggle them. And with all that in mind, this comic 100 percent feels like a test. There’s a ton of entertainment packed in these pages — from visual gags to one-liners — and the book demands jumping from one panel to the next, never feeling staid or boring.

Trigger Keaton may have been a miserable #*@&-nut, but the comic about his death is a delight, giving Starks and Schweizer a great jumping off point from which to lampoon TV tough guys from bygone eras.

Overall: Trigger Keaton may have been a miserable #*@&-nut, but the comic about his death is a delight.. If you’ve liked Kyle Starks and Chris Schweizer’s past comics, you will almost certainly like this book. 8.5/10

REVIEW: The Six Sidekicks of Trigger Keaton #1

The Six Sidekicks of Trigger Keaton #1
Writer: Kyle Starks
Artist: Chris Schweizer
Color Assistant: Liz Trice Schweizer
Publisher: Image Comics
For fans of CHEW and ASSASSIN NATION comes a new action-mystery series from Eisner Award nominees CHRIS SCHWEIZER (Crogan Adventures) and KYLE STARKS (SEXCASTLE).
The world's most unlikable action star has been found dead, and his previous TV sidekicks are looking to solve the mystery. But how can you catch a murderer when almost everyone hated the victim? Now these sidekicks are going to learn what it means to be the stars of the show…that is, if any of them survive the STUNTMAN WAR!
Price: $3.99
Buy It Here: The Six Sidekicks of Trigger Keaton #1

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Zack Quaintance is a tech reporter by day and freelance writer by night/weekend. He Tweets compulsively about storytelling and comics as Comics Bookcase.