Pearl - Team Up's Comic Corner
Pearl (2018): 12 Issues
Welcome back to the comic corner for this weeks recommendation. In the past we have done mostly superhero comic’s for our recommendations so I figure its time to branch out a bit and look at one of my favorite creator owned series Pearl (2018)!
Created by Brain Michael Bendis and Michael Gaydos in 2018 for the JinxWorld imprint from DC comics this 12 issue series follows a young Tattoo artist as she finds out her true family history as major crime bosses in the Yakuza Clan. The concept of this series is as simple as that. But don’t let the simple premise fool you, this series has some of the best art I have seen as well as some of the most fully realized characters in modern comics.
In 2017 Bendis made the major decision to leave Marvel comics, where he had been a major architect of the entire universe for almost 20 years. He literally created the Marvel Ultimate Universe, the basis for all of those movies we love so much, when he started with Ultimate Spiderman in 2001. These books where so successful that they often outsold their main continuity counterparts. Come November 2017 he left all that behind to come and work for DC comics on the Superman series, but part of his deal for coming over was that he would be able to start a creator owned imprint called JinxWorld. The first series of this new imprint was Pearl.
The series wastes no time getting to the action as in the first few pages it is revealed that this pale girl named Pearl is an expert with a gun, she guns down an entire crew of unsuspecting bikers when she gets caught in the middle of a drive by shooting. What you also learn in these first few pages is that pearl is also a locally renowned tattoo artist famous for her intricate and delicate designs. As the series progresses you find out that Pearl learned to tattoo from her mother and when her mother dies unexpectedly, Pearl covers her own body in beautiful white line tattoos that only show in her skin when she is flushed with anger or emotion. She learned to handle a gun from her father who only wanted to protect her from a threat she knew nothing about.
As we get to know Pearl and the other supporting characters it comes to light that Pearls mother was actually a big time Yakuza boss, think Lucy Lu in Kill Bill, who used her husband as the face of her operation as not to put a target on her family’s back because she is a woman in the fiercely traditional gang.
As Pearl realizes the type of power she has in the underworld because of her mother, she must protect herself to find out her families true history and who is trying to kill her.
This romp through the underworld of tattoos and assassins is a great break from the more outrageous superhero fair everyone is used to from Bendis. Its clear that each character was put into this story with a purpose but you don’t always know what that purpose is, while this is a short series with one central story it is not crazy to think that this is more of a volume 1 than it is just this single self contained story. Fans of movies like John Wick will love this book but I suggest that everyone reads it if only for the amazing and surreal splash pages. The artwork on the traditional Japanese tattoos is spot on and everything around it with thin lines and muted or outrageous tones really throw a nice contrast of art into the story. A masterclass on how to show carnage yet have it still be so beautiful you could hang it on a wall in your house. Pearl Volume 1(#1-6) is available now wherever you get your books and Volume 2 (7-12) is coming out this December. That’s all for today, leave your thoughts in the comments and any other comics that you think deserve the spotlight in the coming weeks! See you next week and don’t be afraid to crease the corners on a good panel!
