Monday, July 30, 2007

Pitbull by Paolo Parisi
Paolo Parisi has created a fabulous mini-comic that seems ready to be snapped up by any of several small publishers. His book is fleshed out nicely, telling a complete story of interest to almost anyone. The art has a nice balance of detail and ambiguity, creating a pleasing page at an instant. The prose is as choppy and brutal as the subject matter - a tough street kid makes good pulverizing people in the ring. The Pitbull piles up wins, but the wear and tear on his body catches up. He uses drugs to numb the pain. His relationships outside the ring crumble and he's left facing an improbable comeback against a younger, quicker, and bigger fighter. Sounds a bit like the corny Rocky franchise, but Paolo doesn't take the easy way out with the Pitbull.

This is a high quality mini-comic from cover to cover. The thick, glossy cover is folded over a normal false cover and the interior art has a pleasing mix of black and white art with gray washed tones to lend depth to the backgrounds.

Pitbull is 56 pages and I think you can get your hands on it for 4 euros. Paolo's email is paolo.parisi1980@libero.it or paoloparisi80@gmail.com. Here's a review in Italian from one of my favorite websites, Canicola.

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