Bettie Page #1 // Review
The Queen of the Pinups has been busy all day. The photographer has her on a very tight schedule. She’s only got a few moments to step out of the studio and into a orchid pink winter coat (and NOT the lavender pink one). She’s looking for a way out. She finds it in Bettie Page #1. Writers Mirka Andolfo and Luca Blengino open up a whole new series with the legendary 1950s pinup model. Bettie’s beauty is framed in a cozy, cartoony comics style by artists Elisa Ferrari, Mara Angelilli, and Tommaso Ronda. Color caresses the page courtesy of Mauro Gulma and Francesca Vivaldi.
Bettie is soon rescued from the studio drudgery by her agent, who has found more glamorous and lucrative employment on the other side of the ocean. It seems as though a big-name Italian movie director is interested in having her star in his next feature film. She’s only got one week before principal photography starts on the film, and Bettie doesn’t exactly have feature film experience. What could possibly go wrong? And why is it that there seem to be so many accidents taking place on the set of the movie? A very strange mystery begins to reveal itself to Bettie, her agent, and her assistant.
Andolfo and Blengino are working with an old moviemaking trope that goes back to the early days of comics. Nefarious acts of sabotage on the set of a major motion picture? It has been done more than once in the pages of Wonder Woman and a few other comics. Contemporary pacing serves to add some much-needed structure to the old trope. Andolfo and company provide a nice bit of extra depth with a well-paced mystery that ends in a fun cliffhanger. Bettie comes across as a relatable character with a couple of interesting friends backing her up in a mystery.
The art team gives Bettie a soft, thoughtful approach. Bettie’s face is very expressive, hinting at emotions that go quite a bit deeper than the dialogue alone conveys. The drama coaxed onto the page by the art team does an impressive job of drawing the reader into a light mystery. Gulma and Vivaldi provide some beautiful lighting work that lends the page depth and radiance. A scene sneaking around at night might feel a little over-lit, but the colorists give the page a rich saturation that amplifies the warmth of the story considerably.
Andolfo establishes a cozy adventure for Bettie in the first issue of her fifth series with Dynamite Entertainment. The Queen of the Pinups continues to be a pleasant and engaging character to hang out with for 24 pages. From form to color to plot, it’s all so well-constructed that it scarcely seems to matter that there really isn’t anything new being explored. The depth of the color aside, the story and its artistic rendering wouldn’t seem entirely out of place in a mid-20th century issue of Millie the Model. That’s not a bad thing. The contemporary shading on a retro comic feels more or less perfect.
