KOMIKS REVIEW: Caution – Drugs/Sex/Rock ‘N Roll
An unnamed rock icon tells the story of his rise to fame and stardom, how he started from being down low until he met “someone” who reached out to him back when he’s on the verge of suicide. This “friend” saved him and gave him the contract that will change his life forever, but of course, it ain’t for free. Patrick “Rawwrr” Enrique‘s title really fits his book, it’s all about drugs, sex and rock ‘n roll. This could easily be an r-18 book given the topic and graphic scenes and violence.
There’s nothing new with the plot, actually. Devil contracts are here and there in movies, comics, and other media and the “you get the things you want for a cost” theme always plays out as a great plot device. From the get-go, it’s apparent that it’ll be about the protagonist paying the price later on but in the next few pages it turns out that what this comic really tackles is the issue on drugs. Again, there’s nothing new here as there are tons of media that already covered the story of how a drug addict falls into the hallucination of killing monsters. It is interesting though, how Enrique put the two plot devices together, aided with the matching pace and transformation of his panels sported more darkness and emotions in the last pages.
What the comic could use some work on, perhaps is the art and letters. It’s all gritty and dark but I felt that there were pages that could have looked nicer with better contrast. Also, there seems to be lack of consistency with the character design. The protagonist’s supposed to be a rock icon falling into drug addiction but it seems that his appearance jumps back and forth between drug addict to pop icon, jumping from scrawny to normal then back again to the addict appearance.
And I’d say the letters are much more weaker than the art here. Typeface Arial doesn’t really work well for onomatopoeia such as “blam”s and “crash”s. I thought the splash page in the end’s cool too, with the protagonist struggling to get away from a demon, but again, the choice of font was anti-climatic and turned me really down. Same goes with the text for narration and other parts as the typeface robs the pages with the supposed drama or impact.
Still, Caution: Drugs/Sex/Rock ‘n Roll is a good read. It’s impressive that he chose a heavy topic such as drug addiction and he got away without his book sounding preachy. I’d say I could definitely look forward to more of Rawwrr‘s works.
