It sounds like a simple job: Rufo will drive a large truck full of goods, along with a passenger, to a far-off destination. The only thing he has to do is promise not to open the truck and look at the cargo. Shouldn’t be a problem. But at one truckstop, it all goes to Hell- he gets challenged to a fight by a local that turns deeply bloody and violent out in the parking lot. Crimes are committed, and the local… the local is determined to open the truck. That can’t be good, can it?

This is Grampa’s debut graphic novel, and wow, is it a doozy. It isn’t so much that he’s put together a brilliant story on the page; most of the twists and turns here are fairly standard. But it’s the way that Grampa executes them that catches the eye. This guy can draw like nobody’s business! His figures and faces are dynamic and lively, exaggerated just so in order to give them depth and feel on the page. His “camera movement” is astonishing, giving you angles that you don’t feel like you’ve seen thousands of times before. And his design sense is fluid and graceful, putting together a package of pages that feels like something far more epic and substantial than what’s really here. If his comics work doesn’t pan out, he has a career directing films ahead of him.

The book will be solicited to hit shelves in November, so if you’re looking for something a little different to check out beyond the same ol’ crap, you might want to take a look at MESMO.

Marc Mason