Review by Ian Keogh

Jim Zub still doesn’t name the main characters for this second volume, described at the start to the title story as one being a dwarf with a beard and the other not. Best just to refer to them as the Skullkickers. Due to events in 1000 Opas and a Dead Body the pair are considered heroes in Mudwich, so they’re keeping schtum about being responsible for most of the trouble in the first place. Not all of it, though, and those responsible for the remainder stir up worse and from the subsequent wanted posters we finally learn we’ve been reading about Rex and Rolf.

The previous book had energy and enthusiasm, but finesse was in short supply. This is an improvement, with the comedy moments better paced and staged, and greater imagination applied to the possibilities of a fantasy world. There’s a decent plot also, one that would work without the jokes. By the end of the story both main characters have endowments that could be either aid or curse, which is cleverly arranged.

Edwin Huang’s art is also improving, with less reliance on expressions in close-up and more expansive scene setting. Plenty of new characters are required, and Huang designs them distinctively, with green gang leader Pankey an especially gruesome rogue.

An over-riding threat and an end to it are beautifully set-up by Zub as he pulls all the threads together while leaving enough left over to set up Six Shooter on the Seven Seas.

Considering by Five Funerals and a Bucket of Blood there’d only been five individual issues of Skullkickers it’s surprising that enough other creators fancied producing a story, but four shorts close this volume. The best of them has a Jim Zub on art drawing Brian Clevinger’s story contrasting two versions of an epic battle. These stories are found in the first hardback Skullkickers Treasure Trove, but not first Skullkickers Compact Attack Edition in paperback.