Bounty Hunter and Serenade
Published by Kiss Me Comics
20 pages
$3.00

A review of two comics from Kiss Me Comics.

Bounty Hunter, by writer Rod Jenkins and artist Barbara Jenkins, is a fairly straightforward super hero tale. A young man is kidnaped off the streets by an evil genius (who also happens to be a white supremacist) and subjected to experiments that make him super-strong. After escaping and donning a military battle suit from a friend- turned-scientist, he exacts revenge on the villain, who has now abducted his mother. Bounty Hunter is a simple story, that, due to problems of editing (words missing from sentences, misspellings) and somewhat silly dialogue, is hard to read. Mind you, I'm not saying Rod Jenkins is a bad writer, just that more attention needs to be paid to the editing process.

The art on the book is, un-fortunately, not much better. This is a surprise, as Barbara Jenkins' art on the Serenade title seems to be a few notches above this work. Most noticeable is that inconsistent size of characters. In one panel, the hero may loom large over another character, while later being closer to the same size. Not only is the art of Serenade superior to that of Bounty Hunter, the writing is also more enjoyable.

The story of a young girl of African-American and Korean race, it deals primarily with the prejudice she faces in Korea due to her mixed heritage. This is unique subject matter that, to my knowledge, has never been utilized in comics before. Kudos to Mrs. Jenkins, who also writes the title. (Though Serenade is marketed for "adults only," issue zero, alone, contains nudity, and is not personally recommended by this reviewer. This review concerns the first and second issues.)

Despite some problems, this is a company that desires to produce comics that are different from the norm; different size, different coloring process, etc.

That, along with their spirit, is to be encouraged. Visit their web site at http://pages.prodigy.net/kiss-mecomix/.

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