RUULE VOL. 2: KISS AND TELL #1

By: Tony Whitt
Date: Wednesday, June 02, 2004

Don Rocco has intruded on the East Side, and private eye Sam Swede (also known as The Swede) is pissed. After showing Rocco his displeasure, he's also taken the liberty of stealing the heart of Rocco's daughter Phyllis and soon he'll take her as his wife. Don Daggoni has warned Rocco that his injunction against taking action against the Swede is still in effect and that having the Swede as a son-in-law may be the best protection that Rocco will ever get...

Man, how I hate coming late to a party especially when I don't know anyone there. That's exactly the feeling that RUULE VOL. 2: KISS AND TELL #1 leaves me with, and presumably it's because I never read Volume 1. It's like stepping into a room where everyone is telling amusing stories about things that have happened to them, and yet none of them is willing to explain the joke to a newcomer. I'm sure someone's going to read this and say, "Why don't you stop whining and go out and find Volume 1, then, already?" Sure, I could do that but there's something to be said about constructing the first issue of a comic series, even a first issue of a series that's a continuation of a previous on, in such a way to make it accessible to new readers. Some series do this with the ever-awkward but occasionally useful "Story So Far" page. Some series do this with imbedded exposition that signals to the reader what has come before. Some series do this with a line here or there that explains a character's motivations. This series does none of those things. When the Swede steps into that card game and starts busting heads, then turns around and beds the Don's daughter who in turn immediately decides to marry him, we have no sense that there's any reason why any of them are doing what they're doing. And without a "Story So Far" page, and given the minimal imbedded exposition we get here, we're still clueless by the end.

There's also not much that's appealing about these characters. If Sam Swede is meant to be the "hero" of the piece, he's got none of the noble qualities that we'd expect from a well-rounded hero nor any of the charm or slyness that we'd expect from a well-rounded anti-hero. From his first appearance to his last, he's little more than a thug, and one with limited wit at that. (His comeback to Phyllis' statement that she's had her eyes on him, for example, is "Yeah? Well, hurry it up and get the rest of ya on me." Which, of course, she does.) Unless he's hung like a mule and no doubt he is there's seemingly no reason why Phyllis would decide to marry him after one roll in the hay, nor why his overprotective, Aunt May-ish mother would be so clueless as to think he'd need her to be overprotective. The other characters are little better they're as flat as pancakes and so broadly stereotypical they'd be laughed out of an episode of THE SOPRANOS.

While the characters may be drawn badly by the writer, the saving grace of RUULE #1 is that they're not drawn badly by the artist. Craig Rousseau is the only reason why anyone would read this book from its mid-stream start to its distressingly abrupt finish his artwork has a lively, almost animated quality (in both senses of that word) that belies the flat staleness of the story he illustrates. In fact, it was the stylized cover of this issue (and the fact that I hadn't looked at an indie book in quite a long time) that drew me to it, and it's Rousseau's artwork that would bring me back if I could ignore the flawed plot and characterization. I'd go so far as saying that Rousseau's artwork would bring me to just about any book for an initial look-see and that his talents are going to waste on a title like this. It's good to see that independent companies like Beckett are putting out work that looks every bit as polished and refined as the big boys but it's distressing to see that while the artwork on RUULE may be silk, the plot is little more than a sow's ear.

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