Happy #1 Review

Happy #1

writer- Grant Morrison

artist- Darick Robertson

The new Image Comics mini-series, Happy, is a violent hard boiled blood-fest written by megastar Grant Morrison and illustrated by Transmetropolitan artist, Darick Robertson.  Oddly, the book is an enjoyable yet uncomfortable story that not only steps back from the superhero genre, it flies off on blue feathered wings.

Happy introduces Nick Sax, a tough as nails ex-cop turned hit-man for hire. When Sax rubs out the one guy who has the password to a secret mob vault, crooked cops and mobsters come out of the woodwork to see if he has that password. And if that doesn't seem stressful enough, Nick begins seeing and talking to a little blue flying unicorn named Happy.

Robertson is good at conveying hard boiled. His city streets are cold and dismal and his mobsters are square jawed club nosed heavies. He pulls no punches when it comes to the violence and gore in the story, unless of course its to punch a hole through a Mafia hit-man’s skull. Years ago, Robertson drew a few issues of Wolverine. I always liked his art on that, but I realized that it just wasn't his genre. His work on Transmetropolitan and the Marvel/MAX mini-series Punisher: Born really sold me on his darker style. In Happy, there's no doubt that everyone in the book is a bad person with very bad things in mind.

I'm normally a big fan of Grant Morrison's story telling. His work on DC's Batman titles, Arkham Asylum, Animal Man, and Action Comics are some of the best things he's ever written. But Morrison has been writing hero comics for so long that his non-hero works are sorely overlooked. Happy is definitely a Morrison creation. The story is brilliant and the scripting is cool and edgy.  The melding of crime adventure and fantasy turns out to be something he's good at. Even though one of the main characters is a goofy blue flying unicorn, there's no doubt that this book isn't for kids. Grant Morrison's departure from mainstream comics allows him to use the “F bomb” in every other word and when I say "every other word," I mean the word itself and every other word in the book. Still, Happy #1 is a blast. I have a feeling that it's opening up a whole new era of work from Morrison that may very well change the way people see him, but not in a bad way.