Alex Robinson is the Robert Altman of graphic novels. Tricked takes an ensemble cast of six strangers-a washed up womanizing rock star, a long lost daughter, an obsessed music fan, a disenchanted lover, a counterfeiter and a frustrated waitress-and slowly pulls them towards a moment of violence that will connect them all.
Robinson pushes the potential of the page. Tricked goes beyond a smart story and skilled artwork; the interplay between text and image adds a whole other layer that wonderfully enhances the experience of reading this book. As one of the characters starts to battle mental illness, not only does the writing of his thoughts start to become messy and hard to read but the text also starts to break up into smaller boxes that are hard to follow, as if tossed about the page randomly.
I found the introduction to the characters a little hard to get into, but once the story starts to flesh out, Tricked proves to be an entertaining page-turner. The suspense builds as the chapters count down backwards from 50 to 1 and characters’ lives start to overlap. I was surprised to find myself caring about this motley crew-many of the characters flaunt a great deal of undesirable qualities and yet they remain engaging.
I’ll admit I am more a lover of autobiographical comics but Tricked is so well-crafted it has renewed my excitement in fictional graphic novels. (Suzy Malik)
by Alex Robinson, $19.95, 349 pgs, Top Shelf Productions, PO box 1282, Marietta, GA, 30061-1282, U.S.A., www.topshelfcomix.com