Title: Raptor Cop: The Battle with Willie the Worm
Author: J. Pedicini
Cover Art by: Ogi Grujic
Publisher: Amazon Digital Services
ASIN: B0133U3G2M
Pages: 58
Genre: Comic Format, Adventure, Mature
Reviewed by: J. Christian Worthington
Buy on Amazon
Pacific Book Review
Move over Stan Lee, there’s a new guy on the block! Having the classical comic book format with detailed boxed drawings and hand-written balloon dialog, creator and author J. Pedicini brings his imaginary world of bizarre events to life in his Raptor Cop series titled The Battle with Willie the Worm.
The story begins in a downtown jewelry store as a lady is trying on a necklace. From under a masked and covered costume, out slides a little worm onto the hand of the store clerk. From there thousands of worms quickly cover the clerk as she is stunned and in awe of what is happening to her. She quickly dies by being consumed by the flesh eating parasites devouring her alive. As the dead clerk’s skeleton lies on the floor, consumed of all skin and guts in a pool of blood, the leader of the heisters rips off his costume of an elderly woman shopper. Revealing his sculptured muscular physique, a tribal arm band tattoo on his left shoulder, an eye patch covering his right eye, he portrays an intense determination of stealing the money from the store’s safe.
Outside the jewelry store, on the street, the police SWAT take up their positions.
So begins the incredibly imaginative story of a crime headed up by a powerful gang leader unstoppable with ordinary police rules of engagement, until the unthinkable occurs.
Next appears an unforgettable splash page of a morphed policeman which has turned into a quasi-raptor hybrid human. Growing out of his uniform in a way reminiscent of The Hulk, J. Pedicini created this powerful force of good – a super cop so to speak; emerged from an accidental cross of experimental biological research and a human policeman character.
With detailed panel drawings in a stylishly dark and fanciful fashion, the creative imagery and terse dialog of author J. Pedicini brings to the theater of the reader’s mind the escapades of this blood thirsty, gruesome and borderline grotesque story of villainous characters claiming rule to the city in a seemingly unstoppable crime spree.
The Raptor Cop is the only force of good capable of stopping the anarchy of the deviously powerful gang of criminals.
As a picture is worth 1,000 words, this 58-page comic reads like a novella, allowing the artistry to be viewed, admired, and thus savoring the imagery in lieu of descriptive narrative. Clearly a labor of love, J. Pedicini salutes the other masters of the comic industry by emulating certain techniques, adding to it his own original twists.
This debut story sets the basis for more to come, as new adventures of good vs. evil are alluded to in the closing frames. Like an old-fashioned movie serial, stay tuned for the future episodes of Raptor Cop.
