WEBCOMIC WEDNESDAY REVIEW: Johnny Bullet

Hello, everyone! I’m Aaron, and I’m back again to bring you your next favorite webcomic (hopefully) while you stock up on Jameson and Bailey’s for the coming St. Patrick’s Day! Please, if you have any feedback, leave it here in the comments or contact me on Twitter (@Sully_Writes). And as always, if you have or know of a webcomic that you’d like to see reviewed, reach out and let me know!

Creator: HervÃ© St-Louis
Webcomic: Johnny Bullet

Summary: Johnny Bullet is the titular hero of a webcomic strip about stunt driving, street racing, and adventure. The plot initially focuses on the murder of one of Johnny’s closest friends, and the investigation surrounding it; though it takes frequent detours to explore the sticky situations that Johnny frequently finds himself in, and moments in the character’s past that might provide clues to the mysterious death of his mechanic.

Story: Johnny Bullet is a character-driven story broken up into short webcomic strips, reminiscent of the classic black and white comics from the seventies. While many of the characters remain thinly explored thus far, Johnny and his manager (Sergei) fit into traditional tropes and are easy and light to read. Johnny himself is the good man who behaves like a bad boy, reminiscent of an “every-man’s” James Bond. He is more than capable of holding his own in a tense situation or a fist fight, though he’d prefer to settle things on the road.

Johnny’s decisions often put himself or his team into a bind, but in the end, things seem to work out for the main character. This sort of writing is not new, nor is it especially thought-provoking, but it is easy to read and enjoyable. The comic is paced well, using simple page construction and an abundance of action sequences. There are a few moments where the sequences become muddied or difficult to understand, but on the whole the series is a quick one to power through and catch up on, despite being over one hundred strips.

Art: The art style of Johnny Bullet is simple; black and white with strong contrasts and repetitive panel layouts. The art of the characters themselves improves considerably over the course of the series, though the physical action sequences and posture of individuals continue to feel a bit stiff. In a way, this is a detriment. However, in other ways it only helps to sell Johnny Bullet as a strip that genuinely feels as though it is a relic of comic days gone by.

The true strength of the series lies in the creator’s ability to draw vehicles and the sequences surrounding them. For a comic that focuses so heavily on driving, this is a necessity, and HervÃ© St-Louis excels here. Often, when reading comics featuring cars, the vehicle either feels unnaturally muddled, or too perfect, as if it were traced off of a model. With Johnny Bullet, the iconic muscle cars used are immediately recognizable without feeling unnatural in the scene. They are drawn as naturally as anything else.

Conclusion:Â There are weak points to Johnny Bullet that will turn off some readers. However, if you or someone you know are a fan of hammy old action movies, golden age comics, or (especially) muscle cars, then Johnny Bullet is worth checking out. Personally, being a classic car fanatic, I would rate it higher for that reason alone. However, for a general audience, I give this webcomic…