Deer Editor #2: Gotta Start With a Heart

Deer Editor #1 kicked off a hard boiled detective story that starred an upright, talking deer. Perfectly normal. But Deer Editor #2 is here to take some chances by dipping its toe into the supernatural and by starring a human.

Deer Editor #2 begins in the apartment of The Truth’s sub editor, Dan. Bucky has been missing for three months. In his absence, Dan is working the story that Bucky was on when he disappeared. This has brought him to a gentlemen’s club that he’s long been suspicious about. A friend who works there feeds him information from time to time (as long as he checks in while she’s on the clock). Unfortunately she gets killed during Dan’s latest visit. That’s when Dan learns that there are vampires in the city and the mayor is working for them. Then the issue flashes back to the aftermath of Deer Editor #1’s cliffhanger. Bucky is scooped up and taken to a nondescript backroom where he’s beaten repeatedly. Eventually the mayor visits him. Both Bucky and Dan get the same ultimatum: work for the vampires or die.

It’s difficult to say that anything feels out of place in a detective story where the main character is a deer, but the vampire revelation in Deer Editor #2 comes close. Lindsay’s choice not to belabor that revelation, though, actually helps sell it. Dan and Bucky aren’t entirely nonplussed, but they don’t fixate on the idea. The story more or less proceeds as if the mayor was involved with a bunch of perfectly human murderers.

Dan is an engrossing character–more so, in some ways, than Bucky. He’s not as gruff as Bucky which makes him much easier to connect with. And even though he’s not more relatable per se–he’s stuck in his own head in a way that most people probably aren’t–he comes across as surprisingly earnest. Dan didn’t stand out as particularly noteworthy in the first issue. If a reader was going to be predisposed to like the character going into Deer Editor #2, it would be as a result of his association to Bucky rather than anything about Dan himself. So it’s a credit to Lindsay that after only eight pages, Dan being given the choice to serve the vampires or die is as impactful as it would be for a well established character.

Dan’s presence in this issue also adds dimension to Bucky’s character. In the first issue it was made clear that Bucky appreciates Dan’s work. This issue develops a more personal connection–not just through Bucky’s concern when the situation goes south late in the issue, but also in how Dan’s doggedness resembles Bucky’s. When discussing the extensive work Dan has done on the case while Bucky was gone, Bucky comments that Dan really fell down the rabbit hole. Dan responds: “I”m a tunnel rat. I went down armed and willing.” There’s the sense that Dan did what he thought Bucky would which immediately asserts that Bucky is the kind of person worth emulating. It’s a great bit of character development that can only be conferred on Bucky by someone other than himself.

Deer Editor #2’s visuals are very clever. There are obvious moments–such as when Bucky is tied to a chair staring at his rack of antlers mounted on the opposite wall. But the issue also takes advantage of the medium to add subtext and commentary. There are multiple instances where Dan seems to almost freeze in a moment, not moving for a couple panels before coming up with a reply or idea; these instances of visual repetition do a great job communicating the idea that Dan gets lost in his own racing mind.

Later in the issue, while Bucky is being held prisoner, the mayor visits him. Over the course of three panels, Kivelä shifts perspective from looking at the mayor from a 90 degree angle to 45 degrees and then finally straight on. So the reader begins the sequence looking at him and Bucky’s snout in profile and finishes by looking the mayor straight in the eye as Bucky would be. The end result is that by the end of the exchange the reader is essentially looking at the mayor through Bucky’s eyes.

The best visual work, though, comes in the issue’s first and last panels. They both take place in Dan’s apartment. The panel size is identical as is the perspective. Dan sits at his kitchen table with coffee in his hand. Behind him, on the opposite wall in what passes for a “living room”, are Dan’s notes. In the first panel, daylight shines through the window on Dan, and the wall with the notes is in shadow. In the last panel, it’s night out and the light from inside that apartment is on the wall of notes (where Bucky stands) while Dan is in shadow at his table. In a way, Dan borrowed Deer Editor and by the end of the issue he’s handing it back to Bucky.

Deer Editor’s bluescale coloring gives the series a distinct look. It worked very well in the first issue. And it largely works in this issue. The exception is in the main area of the gentlemen’s club. It doesn’t set an effective tone. The club feels neither dark enough nor light enough. There’s just no sense of mood, especially once the vampires reveal themselves.