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The Bends : One Shot
Review by : Melissa Megan @ Nerds in Babeland
http://nerdsinbabeland.com/archives/7285

The Bends is a 77 page one shot graphic novel, available on Graphicly in digital form, created by Charles Pazos. He is also currently trying to fund the publishing of The Bends in book form through a Kickstarter with 32 days left to succeed. I had never heard of the author or the book previous to receiving an email soliciting review, but at first glance the art work caught my eye so I decided to check it out.

Set in Miami, this is a very classic crime-noire story of power and corruption, politics and sex. It’s definitely intended for a mature audience. The story moves along fast, propelled by gritty action and and an ongoing, lighthearted dialogue between two hired hitmen who seem to have a friendly past together. Events in The Bends move along and intersect each other like a Tarantino film and I wasn’t surprised to see Tarantino mentioned in the thank you notes at the end of the story. You don’t get much time to become acquainted with the characters enough to really care about them, but I feel like with this type of story spending too much time with any of them would slow the pace in an undesirable way.

The art of The Bends is clean and simple, all black and white, built of heavy lines and well defined panels; the style works well with the simplicity of the story line. Again a very classic crime-noire look that builds a world full of shadows and stark, ugly realities. The characters all look a little tired and worn, some with an appropriate snarl or heavy brow that belies their intentions.

It’s a quick, easy read that does a good job of keeping you pulled in and interested in what’s coming next. I enjoyed the story, for what it is, and definitely recommend giving it a read if you’re a fan of noire style stories, but I also struggle to find much else to say about The Bends here. It’s not a story that reaches very far beyond what’s been seen before, and it’s a one shot, so there’s nothing left to wonder about. Again, if crime stories with clean, well drawn art are your thing, check it out and maybe even head over to support it in print through Kickstarter.

http://www.nerdsinbabeland.com (http://s.tt/1kHr4)

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The Bends : One Shot
Review by : matthewjeske @ Bombast Podcast
http://bombastpodcast.wordpress.com/2012/08/21/bombast-review-the-bends-one-shot-by-charles-pazos/

Phil: So, Matt and i were sent a copy of “The Bends” by Charles Pazos to review on our website. I think we’re both excited to get a submission like this.
Matt: Yeah. It’s really cool to get somebody’s work to review or promote.

Phil: Definitely.

Matt: And if we knew what we were doing to a greater degree, we would have a review policy published on the website, haha.

Phil: That sounds like a job for you to figure out. I guess to kind of summarize the book a little bit, it’s kind of a dark, noir-feeling sort of book.

Matt: It’s a crime story – I guess it’s in the near future, although there really aren’t any high-tech science fiction elements.

Phil: It has some parts that definitely draw comparison to Frank Miller — especially his work on Sin City — and even Quentin Tarantino.

Phil: There’s some cool gadgets in the book, but overall not too much sci-fi.

Matt: It seems like Charles Pazos is trying to set up a world that he can play with in the future for more stories.

Phil: Definitely. this book feels like one small story within a larger story. It feels like some of these characters are intended to come back in a big way. I think that the main characters are these two hit-men. I love those guys.

Matt: What, just hitmen in general? Or these characters in particular?

Phil: Well, it’s always good to have a few hit-men as friends, but these guys are pretty cool.

Matt: Ok.

Phil: When I brought up the Tarantino-esque feeling of the book, I mostly meant the conversation that those hit-men have in the car on the way to their job.

Matt: Oh, okay. That really felt like a Brian Bendis-type scene. Like in some of his Avengers comics where the Avengers are sitting around a table, eating and talking in the mansion.

Phil: Hmmm… okay, i guess i can see that.

Matt: Or in Powers where the two main cop characters are driving around and having some little mundae conversations while they try to solve a crime.

Phil: I’m definitely amused by any conversation these action types have when they’re not in the middle of a mission. It worked for Tarantino, it worked for Bendis and it works for Pazos.

Matt: The part that just has the two hitmen talking is kinda similar to the scene at the beginning of Reservoir Dogs, where the guys are all in the diner before the action started.

Phil: I think by the end of that scene you have a pretty good idea of who the hit-men are, and they’re actually pretty different from each other.

Matt: Really? I didn’t get that from it.

Phil: Well, one of them likes sushi and the other doesn’t. There’s more to it than that, but I don’t want to give away too much of the book.

Matt: You’re always afraid to give away too much of a book. To back it up, the story starts with a child support hearing in a courthouse, and then we move on to the hitmen, as they go about their mission. They have some kinda fun little banter, and we discover they’re both Colombian, or Colombian-American

Phil: Yeah. At first I thought that the father at that hearing was going to be the main character.

Matt: And we learn a little about their shadowy boss.

Phil: Donovan, the rock star.

Matt: Not Donovan Leitch, who hung out with the Beatles and wrote Sunshine Superman, and Mellow Yellow. Although it would have been cool if it was. I may even have enjoyed it more!

Phil: I see that our interpretations of this book differ a bit.

Matt: Haha! They talk about this shadowy crime-boss and his grandiose vision of himself/possible mental illness. That part of the story kind of made me groan inwardly; it just felt kind of cliche for some reason.

Phil: Yeah, it was a little frustrating to have that much of a set-up for a character that doesn’t directly affect the rest of the book. I do hope that we get to see more of him in the future. I want to see more of how his empire works, and I want to see him in action.

Matt: This eccentric figure that’s standing somewhere offscreen, combined with the feeling of a world that’s building up this end-of-the-world feeling, seemed like something that’s been seen before.

Phil: Well, it’s been seen before because it works. but for me, it mostly works if this book is a prologue to something else.

Matt: It also seemed like something where the writer may have been patting himself on the back a little for adding something strange and original to a crime story.

Phil: It’s fine to have a few issues of Daredevil where they’re talking about the Kingpin. eventually, we do need to see the Kingpin in action.

Matt: I don’t need weird elements in my crime stories, but I guess the ambition of it is something to praise. Also, I am curious to see where Pazos goes with his work in the future. This may be a prologue to something else – the word ‘one shot’ is in the title.

Phil: Matt wants normality in his crime stories.

Matt: Yeah, I think that’s true. The reason why I enjoy EdMcBain is how grounded the police work is in his books. And one of the reasons I enjoy George Pellecanos books is they feel so well-grounded they almost feel like travelogues of the back-alleys of Washington DC.

Phil: That’s an interesting point. I think that The Bends is a book that seems much more realistic than, say, Batman or Daredevil, but it’s still a bit more out there than a lot of prose crime stories.

Matt: They’re a definitely a lot of odd, stylized crime stories in movies too- like certain Tarantino movies, or John Woo. But anyway, back to the story at hand…

Phil: What did you think about the art in this book?

Matt: My issue with the banter of the long conversation scene – is that I feel that, at least personally, I didn’t feel like the dialogue gave me a reason to care about the characters. I wasn’t enjoying it a whole lot, but when it got near the end, there was an internal monologue where one of the characters talks about how he approaches his life and his work as a hitman, and it really made it come together and made it work for me. I was like, “THIS is what makes this character unique.”

Phil: Yeah, it takes a while but it gets there.

Matt: Anyway, back to the art -did you have anything you want to say about the art?

Phil: It was done by putting illustrations over stylized photographs. I’m mostly impressed by the rendering of the photographs into the backgrounds, but the juxtaposition definitely gives a striking effect. It makes the characters pop out a bit more.

Matt: Yeah, the characters are drawn, and the backgrounds for the most part seem to be photographs that were altered into something more graphic and more soaked with mood by using photoshop. I’m curious to know how that was done, I know from my experience using photoshop, that it wasn’t just some easy 1-step trick that everyone knows about.

Phil: Yeah, I’ve had some experience screwing around with pictures like that, and it never turns out that well.

Matt: The art is very clear, and it ‘reads’ well – it’s usually very easy to tell what’s going on. Which I think is priority 1 when you’re making comics art.

Phil: Exactly, and it’s not easy to do when you’re doing art in black and white.

Matt: And there are some backgrounds drawn more by hand, like the interiors of cars, which I know are a pain to draw and get right. The characters are very simply drawn and just slightly cartoony.

Phil: Yeah, they’re kind of boxy a lot of times, which works for me. I like the way that the cartoony looking characters pop against the dark, gritty looking backgrounds.

Matt: I think it works on a practical level, but I found the characters to be a weaker part of the art, and there was some awkwardness to the staging of the characters.

Phil: You mostly see the characters straight ahead or at a profile.

Matt: There were some action scenes where it seemed like all the characters were drawn in profile, and it got to be a little monotonous.

Phil: You don’t get much of the 45 degree turn, or from above or below.

Matt: And also, while I’d say that Pazos does put his best effort into it, it takes a really good artist to make a long conversation in a car visually interesting.

That’s the reason that when you watch Law and Order, and they interview suspects and witnesses in their homes and places of business, the people are always busy doing something. They’re calming a baby or cleaning their house, or trying to fix a vending machine in the convenience store they work in.

Phil: I never noticed that, but you’re right. I always get annoyed when they’re doing something else. I always wish someone would tell them to quit doing the laundry until the police are done asking questions. Yeah, in general I’d say it’s a good job for his first work. Definitely more successful than my first work (which was never completed) or my second work (which was never completed). I would like to see more so that some of these characters can go further. I’d also like to see how the events of this story set off another larger story. We also need to get a good protagonist, someone that the audience can view the world through, not necessarily someone that is going to fix everything, but at least someone that we root for.

Matt: And maybe it might be nice to see how this might work in a story that was larger, but with a little tighter focus. I thought the protagonists were okay, just that the interesting character traits were revealed oddly late in the proceedings. I’ll even say that the lettering didn’t annoy me, and I’m a huge lettering snob.

Phil: I really liked the lettering of the police sirens.

Matt: Well, we’ve started talking about lettering… probably a sign we should wrap up the review…

Phil: Uh-oh. Oh, I thought that was about to be a rant about comic sans or something.

Matt: Haha, no. But I’d like to thank every self publishing comic creator that knows better than to use comic sans in their comic.

Phil: True dat. I definitely also want to give a big thanks to Charles Pazos for letting us read and review his book, The Bends. if you’re interested in reading it for yourself to see what we’re talking about, it’s available on graphicly.

Matt: Its available digitally for now, and I think he plans to release a print version in the future. The way I think graphicly works, if you have an iphone or Android smart phone, (or an e-reader) just do a search in the store for The Bends –One Shot. You can also buy and read it online at the graphicly website on your computer, or read it through facebook.

Interested? Check out “The Bends: One Shot” by Charles Pazos

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The Bends : One Shot
Review by : nilskidoo @ The Lottery Party
http://thelotteryparty.com/the-bends-one-shot/

the three cents.
This debut graphic novella is a bitter, gritty crime noir set in the near but highly likely future of Miami, Florida. The mysterious and polarizing Donovan is pulling many strings from seclusion, manipulating crooked judges and the blue collar unemployed alike. Pop culture wrongfully informs us to hate the players and not the game, but his game is nothing but brooding anarchy, and his players are nothing but little pawns themselves. In a world slowly waking up to the corner it’s wittingly progressed itself back into, there are no heroes- only villains and victims. Sadists and Masochists.
Pazos is apparently a filmmaker, or at least he’s approached this story as such. The narrative takes place over one seemingly long day and night, with a select cast of characters crossing their respective paths at the most inopportune times. The dialogue is always rich and real throughout, providing the only colour to this small cold world of grays unbounded. The leads, a pair of Latino odd-jobbing hitmen, are caught up in the scheme of things, playing the roles of foot soldiers while exchanging silly small talk on par with Tarantino. The flow and pacing are musically methodical, but the script is totally the real winner.
The art is mostly in brushy, wavy black and white, with nigh-infinite grayscales and stylishly incorporated digitally altered photographs, making for a different looking and very attractive comic book. He truly has a keen eye for design. The look and feel of the pages make you realize that this isn’t one of those comic scripts hoping to be a movie, this a film mistakenly cursed into the realms of sequential art. However, a perusal of the website proves that a follow up is in the works that will not be a comic book. As one of the characters has an epiphany towards the story’s finale, the bigger picture becomes somewhat clearer, so seeing how this unfolds- especially in another medium- will be worth the wait.
There’s some sex and some foul language and a lot of violence, so of course I approve of the Bends. It’s precisely where we’ve always been anyway, for all our misguided lives. Read it yourself over here.

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The Bends : One Shot
Review by : Jude Terror @ The Outhousers
http://www.theouthousers.com/index.php/features/20619-kickstart-my-heart-the-bends.html

One of the things I really like about the self-published and crowdfunded projects that I highlight here in Kickstart My Heart is the punk rock, DIY attitude that drives creators, without corporate backing or fame or fortune, to find a way to get their projects out there for the world to read. Why do they do it? Purely for love of comics, or at least that’s what I like to believe. As fans of comics, I think we owe them our support, because the up and coming creators of today are the superstar big shots of tomorrow, and I want those superstar big shots to remember the Outhouse so they can deliver unto us sweet, sweet unique hits, the currency of the internet.

With that in mind, today, I want to show you The Bends by a future superstar big-shot, Charles Pazos. Charles is a writer AND an artist, and he handles both duties on The Bends. He told me that the work is inspired by classic Frank Miller, and he is also a fan of the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and I can see that for sure, but I would also add that his work reminds me of The Great One Brian Bendis and Michael Oeming on Powers.

What I love about this project is that Charles didn’t wait for crowdfunding to create his comic. He went out and created it on his own first, and now he’s looking for funding to print it. Though The Bends is available digitally right now on Graphic.ly, Charles just started a Kickstarter campaign as well, and it has already raised $60 of the $750 he is looking for to fund a limited print run.

First, read on to find out more about Charles Pazos and The Bends, and then head over to Graphic.ly to read the comic right now, and after that go pledge some money and get yourself a print copy!

Book Description

Interconnected events unfold as we meet two men, Aram Delonte and David Nieves, who together are putting in work for a powerful and mysterious man in this fictional crime-noire tale based in Miami.

Creator Bio

Charles Pazos has been into comics since buying his first Superman and Transformers comics when he was 5 years old. Charles’ favorite series of all-time is The Dark Knight Returns and the original run of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (you know the run that ripped off Daredevil). His favorite superhero is Batman because he is into detective stories. Charles wants to write and draw all of his comics so you may not hear from him for a short while on another graphic novel, but he is going to release some freebie digital comics based on some of the characters he is creating for his IP development company: Exit, Inc.

Interview

What is The Bends about?

The Bends really is a state of mind. It’s similar to having ‘the blues’, it’s a noire state of mind. It’s depressing, it’s grimy, it’s ugly. It’s definition in the dictionary is: decompression sickness from trying to rise from the depths too quickly. The world of The Bends is inhabited by characters that chose the wrong paths to rise from economic depths.

What have you worked on before, and where could readers check it out?

This is my first graphic novel. Before this I worked on some short films and I worked at various broadcasting companies in miami doing post-production. I have semi-retired from doing post-production and I am concentrating on being a writer-director of film and sequential art.

For some of our less indie-savvy readers, what might they be familiar with to which The Bends could be compared?

If you dig this, check out Frank Miller’s work on Daredevil in the early 80’s. There are trade-paperbacks that you can get that chronicle Elektra and Daredevil’s infamous encounter with the Hand and the Kingpin, as well as Foggy Nelson’s encounter with The Kingpin, which was hiarious stuff from Miller. Even though that’s superhero stuff and this is not, it really left an impression on me when I got heavy into comics. Also, in the film world you could say this comic is in the same vein as Pulp Fiction and Burn After Reading, but with original twists. If you like this book and are into film, check those movies out.

Your book is available digitally at Graphic.ly. Why digital over print?

Print is coming soon. I love print, and I respect it. The only downside is the use of dead trees. I am getting a campaign started on Kickstarter to finance the 1st print run. This is a limited release on Graphic.ly for the moment, and it will expand to a larger audience soon thereafter.

Why should readers check out your book over all the others out there?

I think I bring an original look art-wise and I think my compositions are different than the usual mainstream comic. Also, there are no superheroes to be found, just real people. It’s a very grounded work for the most part. If they are into crime-noir they may be into this… and it has moments of levity so it’s not a grind to read and it has some intense and personal action scenes.

 

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The Bends: One Shot

Review by: Charles Pazos

Burn this book.