CrossFire: The Beginning

(Mikebooks, 2003)
™ and © Mikebooks

One always has to admire the confidence of any unknown creator who not only spends the time and money to self-publish his own work, but also truly believes that his work can stand up alongside those of tested, proven, and long-admired veterans. But all too often, this confidence unfortunately blinds a motivated creator to the many blatant shortcomings of his own work.

In this case, these shortcomings are obvious. Dolce starts with a neat enough idea (a young TV reporter becomes a slave to his mysterious new super-hero costume) but executes it poorly in many areas. Most are the usual kinds of rookie carelessness: costume details not consistent from panel to panel, bad punctuation, and lack of practice drawing human anatomy. And the fact that the title has a credited editor, a rarity in most one-person, self-published efforts, makes mistakes like these almost unforgivable.

Almost. Because these are the kinds of mistakes that are usually improved on with practice, which Dolce badly needs. But beyond his clever story premise, Dolce also shows promise with scripting that’s not too stilted or cliché-ridden. Faint praise, maybe, but he shows potential capability that many of his peers lack on such efforts. Although, if he’s going to use an editor, he should find one that actually catches the mistakes, instead of just littering the book with unnecessary footnotes.

— Jim Johnson

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#1

Cover Price: $2.95
1 copy available for $3.98

Michael Dolce