There's a certain style David Lapham has been using on all 50 issues of Stray Bullets, dating back to its origins in 1995, and that's an 8 panel grid. 8, like the octaves of a musical scale, creates a tempo, a rhythm you get to when you're reading. He can do ANYTHING with this shit; quiet contemplative scenes between friends and lovers, hilarious set pieces, well choreographed explosions of violence, it all seems to fit together. AND when he bursts out of the rhythm for a splash page or 3 wide panels it means something because of the irregularity and gives the story a new effect. He also does all the lettering, and he's always in control of the emphasis on certain words or the speaking patterns of the cast. Stray Bullets: Killers #7 is just the latest in line. His characters are great and feel like real people, his humor legitimately works, the violence is all at once exciting and horrifying, and he seamlessly goes through a bunch of different tones in one issue that all works together because of that 8 page rhythm I talked about. I'm so, so glad Stray Bullets is back, because its the best crime comic on the block.
