TRADE RATING: TKO Studios’ The 7 Deadly Sins is a rare modern western that works

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The 7 Deadly Sins is available in full now.

By Jarred A. Luján — The 7 Deadly Sins is another one of TKO Studios’ debut books. Featuring the artwork of Artyom Trakhanov and colors of Giulia Brusco, it’s the comic book debut of television writer Tze Chun, who is also a co-founder and publisher with TKO. The story here is a western-style tale, taking place in 1857, in the greatest state in human history, Texas (Editor's note: Jarred is a Texan, obviously). The story follows a priest who recruits six death row criminals for a mission deep into Comanche territory.

Westerns are hard stories to pull off anymore. There was a time in American culture where westerns were everywhere. They helped to shape American film, particularly moives like Shane, Dirty Harry, and The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. Unfortunately, there’s only so many of these kinds of stories you can tell without things getting a little…repetitive. Most modern westerns now try to blend elements of the genre with others, like Stephen King’s Dark Tower series (sci-fi/fantasy/western) or the movie Logan (superhero/western).

Chun and Trakhanov don’t really do that here, which I felt concerned about at first. I love westerns, but did we really need another story about outlaws and cowboys, or someone being the best gun in the west? The answer to that is probably not, but Chun skates around it altogether with one of the wildest group of characters in any western.

A runaway slave, a Chinese surgeon, a slave turned Union soldier, a cannibal, and a white man living as a Comanche all exist in this story. That’s such a diverse and strange roster, but Chun manages to pull it off well. The characters help to really breathe something fresh and new into a genre that is almost traditionally repetitive at this point. The 7 Deadly Sins unapologetic inclusion of slave characters was one of my favorite parts of the book. Westerns have something of a notoriety of shying away from that element of the era, but Chun unflinchingly puts it in the spotlight here, including the central protagonist.

Unfortunately, this character roster is also something of a weakness as well. There are a couple characters in the book that I had a hard time rooting for. As the story goes on and we see some of the things these people have done—and how little interest some have in redeeming themselves—it feels difficult to continue wanting them to succeed. Obviously, not every death row criminal can have a sob story where they didn’t mean to harm someone or they were wrongfully convicted, but because of The 7 Deadly Sins unique characters beings its strongest suit, losing concern for one or two of them does its damage. Regardless, Chun manages to focus the story on the characters you stay keen to, which makes it worth sticking with despite those brief, difficult moments.

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Looking at these pages is really something else, though. This book is gorgeous. Trakhanov lays down some brilliant line art here. The actions scenes feel kinetic, they feel violent. TKO’s giant-sized pages are one of my favorite parts of their releases, because you really get to see the brilliant artwork in a larger, more exciting format. Not to mention Giulia Brusco, who really shines on this as well. Her color work is so good in every scene. Some of my favorite parts of the book are Jericho’s flashbacks, where most of the panel is done in blue, but he’s colored in red. The change is subtle, simple even, but it adds to the depth of emotion going through the character at that time. I live for color work like that.

Briefly, I think letterer Jared K. Fletcher is wonderful in here as well, and I promise it isn’t just because we share a first name. The letterers in this book stand out because they flow so well together with the art. The simple moments are kept simple, but when the book gets violent or tense, we see the colors of the letters themselves stand out, or they seemingly look scrawled on the page. The letters here really add something special to the pages, and it’s some of my favorite lettering altogether.

One of the bigger surprises I found from the book, though, is that this is literally Tze Chun’s first venture into comics. He’s obviously got a background in film, having worked on a wide range of projects, including Gotham, but I’m hoping we’ll see more comics from Chun soon. With a wild story like this, I’m sure he’s got some even more surprising stuff locked away in his head. As a matter of fact, I felt like there was some potential for more story with one of our 7 Deadly Sinners, so I’ll hope that we see more in the future.

Ultimately, The 7 Deadly Sins is fun as hell. While it struggles with its own gritty and unique character group, the book’s focus on the right members of its cast makes it easy to read and another solid offering by TKO Studios.

The 7 Deadly Sins
Writer: Tze Chun
Artist: Artyom Trakhanov
Colorist: Giulia Brusco
Letterer: Jared K. Fletcher
Publisher: TKO Studios
Price: Digital $13.99, Paperback $17.99, Individual Issues in Collector’s Box $24.99
Get It: Via TKO Studios

Check out our Trade Rating page for more great writing about collected comics from Jarred and others!

Jarred A. Luján makes comics, studies existential philosophy, and listens to hip-hop too loudly. For bad jokes and dog pictures, you can follow him on Twitter.

TRADE RATING: Sara by Garth Ennis and Steve Epting is great start for TKO Studios

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Garth Ennis Sara, with art by Steve Epting, is available now via TKO Studios.

By Jarred Luján — TKO Studios recently rolled out their debut line-up, which was essentially headlined by Sara, a story about an all-female Soviet sniper unit fighting against the Nazi invasion of their country. I snatched Sara up pretty quickly because of my familiarity with both the writer and artist. Garth Ennis wrote one of my favorite books of all time, Punisher: Born, Steve Epting drew one of my favorite Captain America stories back in the day, collaborating on it with Ed Brubaker.

Before I dive deeper into the story here, I want to make something clear: the art in Sara is absolutely brilliant. While this book, of course, has its fair share of shootouts and battles and explosions, some of my favorite moments involve Epting’s artwork showing the small expression changes on characters’ faces. Ennis’ script did a fantastic job building up these characters, but it’s Epting’s art that really emphasizes character moments in a way that creates a more engaging reading experience. For those of us who have read comic illustrated by Epting in the past, this comes as little surprise.

Snowy Soviet plains probably do not sound like the best backdrop for a colorist to flex their talents, but Elizabeth Breitweiser does so here. Again, I’m talking mostly about small things, like the rosy cheeks in the midst of the brutal cold. Each moment a sniper bullet tears through a Nazi, the colors create a beautiful contrast of red mist and snow. So many of these pages are littered with black and white tones, yet they still convey much depth in various areas.

So, going into the story itself, it’s probably relevant to note that I have personally lived my entire life surrounded by soldiers. On my mother’s side, I am literally the only male that didn’t enlist (I doubt I’ll ever hear the end of that one, btw.) My family being the way it is meant I grew up with a mixture of war being mythologized and lessons on the darkest aspects of armed conflict from people who had firsthand experience. Growing up, I’d often sit around and watch war movies with my grandfather, or exchange war books with my step-grandfather, who both regularly shared personal anecdote from their times in Korea or Vietnam…sometimes these were funny stories or tales of heroes, and sometimes they were downright terrifying.

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This is all a means of noting that war stories tend to draw me in more than they might the average person. Generally, there are two common ways that war stories are told. The first is your basic Good Versus Evil. It’ll usually feature the sacrifice of Good Heroes, who are certain their side is right and just, with a tinge of patriotism painted underneath. The second is about What War Takes Away. These stories feature good people doing evil deeds, corrupted by the nature of warfare. This often means a loss of decency, hope, morality, life, and—almost always—innocence.

That first type of story is typically the most common way that we see depictions of World War II. There are few human conflicts where it’s so clear where each side stands, what each side represents. Sometimes these stories gloss over the wrongdoings of the side they represent, in an effort to represent them well.

With Sara, Ennis has no interest in doing that. Sara, for whom the story is named, is an extremely conflicted character. She kills Nazis, sure, even efficiently, but Sara time and time again reflects on the cruelty of her own nation, the one she’s defending. This theme lends to some of the best character moments in the book, people clinging to the ideal outcomes of this war, and a jaded Sara trying to figure out where she stands in the first place.

This second type of grey morality story is how the greatest war stories are told. Ennis, though, has a reputation for flipping war stories, for creating a third option all his own. That ability is what made his work on Punisher: Born so brilliant: Ennis concocted a story of Frank Castle seemingly losing something, but it isn’t until the final pages that readers learn he has instead brought something back with him. It isn’t loss, it’s converting.

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Ennis does more subversion of expectations in Sara. Sara’s comrades are the vehicle for this, rather than the dark captioning system that he used to accomplish it within the narrative of Punisher: Born. The parts of the story set in the past here also help us understand what’s happened to Sara to make her feel so ambivalent about the nation she finds herself serving. We discover that it wasn’t the loss of any one thing for Sara, but rather a gaining of truth. A truth that Sara’s devoted friends are not prepared for.

Sara is a slow burn of a book. The first couple chapters really focus on building the situation around Sara and her team, but ultimately that slow burn becomes an explosive flourish. The ending of this story fires on all cylinders, with Ennis teaching a master class on pacing. Sara, in the end, is a comic that incorporates many aspects of the real war stories my family has shared with me throughout my lifetime. Stories about that include patriotism, heroes, and glory, as well as terror, uncertainty, and doubt. Sara is a rarity in that it blends all of those things organically into a single powerful tale.

Overall, TKO has picked a worthy story from a seasoned creative team to represent the publisher well at its launch.

Sara #1
Writer: Garth Ennis
Artist: Steve Epting
Colorist: Elizabeth Breitweiser
Letterer: Rob Steen
Publisher: TKO Studios
Price: Digital $13.99, Paperback $17.99, Individual Issues in Collector’s Box $24.99
Get It: Via TKO Studios

Check out more of our thoughts about trade paperback and original graphic novel on our reviews page.

Jarred A. Luján makes comics, studies existential philosophy, and listens to hip-hop too loudly. For bad jokes and dog pictures, you can follow him on Twitter.

REVIEW: Sara #1 is a direct hit for exciting new publisher TKO Studios

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Sara #1 is free at www.tkopresents.com (password: vipaccess).

By Bo Stewart — “Wait…wait…wait.” A call for patience is how brand-new publisher TKO Studios introduces us to its line of comics. Wait for the perfect shot and be sure not to miss. This is the opening to Sara #1, a story about an all-female Russian sniper squadron in WWII. It’s also a fitting one, however, for TKO Studios itself. Just like with comics, a publisher only has one shot at a first impression. TKO had to get this right and if the first issue of war-thriller Sara is any indication, it took full advantage of the opportunity. Like our spirited protagonists on the page, the publisher comes out firing in the real world.

Legendary creators Garth Ennis and Steve Epting are cleverly meta with this first issue, immediately establishing a theme of patience. When main protagonist, the titular Sara, has been tasked with assassinating a Nazi colonel without any clues as to when or where the target will arrive, patience is her only path forward. The result is a perfectly-paced issue rife with tension.  I wanted Sara to take the shot as soon as the colonel is in her sights, but the character knows better. This issue reads as a teaser to the larger story of the book, which is exactly what a good introduction should do.

Allow me also to briefly indulge my inner history nerd. I’ve always been fascinated by the Eastern Front of the European Theater. Something about Nazis fighting Soviets, and the implied clash of political philosophies, fascinates me, and the creators here pick this theater as the setting for their story. We Americans love to point to D-Day as the beginning of the end for the Third Reich, but the East is where the Nazis truly met their demise. This thread of the larger World War II tapestry doesn’t get nearly the amount of attention it deserves, especially not in American media.

All of this is to say that Sara is interested in telling us a story from a perspective we haven’t seen in an under-utilized setting. Following a group of female Soviet soldiers is a stroke of brilliance. We know that the Soviets were very progressive in their views towards women at that time, but we don’t have many fictional stories that explore this dynamic in a military setting.   

I could go on and on about how awesome the creative team is, but most readers already know these guys. We know a book with the names Garth Ennis and Steve Epting on the cover is going to be great. That’s part of the beauty of TKO’s launch. The publisher knows that fans trust these creators and, in turn, that the creators trust their readers. As a result, nothing is over explained and the exposition is mercifully brief. This comic challenges the audience to keep up. Here’s the real kicker–TKO releases the full book all at once, so the depth of the story can be explored without waiting months at a time for subsequent chapters.

Overall: Sara fires on all cylinders. This is a strong, confident debut from industry legends Ennis and Epting. New publisher TKO Studios has its first hit. 9.0/10

Sara #1
Writer: Garth Ennis
Artist: Steve Epting
Colorist: Elizabeth Breitweiser
Letterer: Rob Steen
Publisher: TKO Studios
Price: Free via TKO Studios (password: vipaccess)

For more comic book reviews, check out our review archives.

Bo grinds for the man by day so he can create comics by night. He is the lesser half of the Stewart Brothers writing team and can be found on Twitter and Instagram @stewart_bros