Prat
Gentlemen Pickle
Writer/Letterer: Buddy Beaudoin
Penciller: Brennan Freemantle
Inker/Colorist: Joel Early
Here is another indie comic that I happened across while at Terrificon in Connecticut. Well, I didn’t happen across it as much as I was hollered at by the creative team, Gentlemen Pickle, and told I have to come check their book out. A method of pitching a comic that is completely fitting for a book such as Prat (that’s a complement I swear!) The main character of this comic, Pike Prat, is a foul mouthed, pint slamming, pub goer with a don’t care attitude. There’s a few things in this world that ring true in either England or the U.S. “Never insult the good standing of a man’s pub.”
Buddy Beaudoin and Brennan Freemantle have done a brilliant job of creating a world, however its Pike’s world and we’re just living in it. That is of course until his American cousin, Peter, comes to England for a visit and sets fire to Pikes world, quite literally. The entire time I was reading this book, I couldn’t help but read the script with a terrible British accent, tainted with a smug “I’m the only person who matters” tone. The story that you think you’re going to be reading is thrown out the window by the end of the first issue, giving me the urge and need to find out how Pike and Peter end their story.
Creators Brennan and Buddy actually met at the same Con in CT but the year prior, so this book has been a yearlong endeavor to put out their first issue of a planned four part series (Buddy assures me that each issue will take less than a year to be brought to the public though!).
The illustrations and coloring of Prat is just as fun and essential to the setting as the dialogue. The dark and dingy pub with its patrons who are less than respectable citizens of the community, are modeled in a way to give a sense of personality that is clearly visible on the surface even if you haven’t spent time in Garrison’s Pub and met everyone. The panels show a great deal of detail to translate what is being thought of or intended without needing a wordy narration. Throughout Prat, the pages and artwork show the collaboration between artist and writer they brings to live the writers vision perfectly. If you are looking for a comic with a theme akin to that of a Guy Ritchie film or a book where the characters’ features are so detailed it has a five o’clock shadow’s become a thing of beauty, than you need to pick this book up and read it.
Prat is soon to be released on Comixology, but for now the book can be found at https://squareup.com/market/gentlemen-pickle. Keep an eye out next year for Nothing Man (Written by Buddy Beaudoin & Illustrated by Nick Palazzo) and Corvus (another collaboration from Buddy Beaudoin and Brennan Freemantle) as more titles from Gentlemen Pickle come out.