REVIEW: A good first case for ‘Deceptive Detective: The Soloist’s Scandal #1′

Everyone loves a good mystery. Especially one that has a detective. With his exceptional skills of observation and deduction, the detective is a character that is easily a fan favorite. Benjamin S. Bartolome’s Deceptive Detective is one of those characters but he might be a a little different than your usual sleuths.

We first caught a sight of hime in Deceptive Detective: The Soloist’s Scandal #1. Scandalous photos of well-known violinist Miss Candor doing a “solo act” prompts her to employ the deceptive detective to find her stalker. The deceptive detective, who looks weirdly suspicious, accepts the case on the condition that she will go out on a date with him to raise his publicity. We then see the deceptive detective in action as he learns about our Soloist by just looking at her. When the Soloist refuses the offer, the deceptive detective goes for the big reveal which turns out to be the start of an interesting turn of events. We then find out why he is called the deceptive detective.

It was a good first case for the deceptive detective. A person in need, a mystery to be solved, and the big reveal. It had all the basics of a detective story. The deceptive detective itself is quite an interesting character. As seen in the first issue, his method is unorthodox and he also might have a couple of loose screws but he gets the job done. Bartolome’s writing of the character does a good job on balancing the genius and the weirdness. He reminded me of Sherlock’s deductive skills and Will Graham’s exceptional emphaty. The other characters writing were also realistic enough. As for the dialogue, it was believable and it gave the character their own personalities.

Clean would be the word to describe Bartolome’s illustrations. The lines are solid and the curves are found in the right places. The balance of black and white is also made it easy on the eyes. The shading of the deceptive detective’s skin was also nice. Look out for the wrestling inspired page. It was one of the highlights of the comics for me.

I do still have some things that I found off. The story did have a big reveal but there was not much build up on the identity of the culprit. The speech bubbles were clear enough except for the last one that looked totally cramped. As for the art, there are some panels which have inconsistencies with facial expressions.

Deceptive Detective: The Soloist’s Scandal #1 has an entertaining first issue. I do look forward to his next adventure but I do hope it would have more buildup when it comes to the mystery.