SERIES SPOTLIGHT
Rob Hanes Adventures #1-3
by Patrick Daniel ONeill
If the comics industry wants to return to widespread distribution, it has to start giving the general public the same kind of story content they've enjoyed in other media. Randy Reynaldo's Rob Hanes Adventures is a perfect example.
Though inspired by such great adventure comic strips of the 1930s and '40s as Terry and the Pirates, Captain Easy, and Buz Sawyer, Reynaldo's work is securely set in the present, telling stories of adventure, espionage, intrigue, murder, and more in exotic settings from the Far East to Russia to the Middle East and elsewhere. His globe-trotting hero, a troubleshooter for Justice International, has the irrepressible youth of Caniff's young Terry along with the solid dependability of the best of the James Bonds.
Reynaldo's art is a joy: He has a great feel for line and blacks, and knows how to use dot toning without. over-using it. His artistic influences -- Caniff, Crane, Toth, Sickles -- are all obvious, but he is not slavishly copying any one style. Instead, he is talented enough to see what each man did well and incorporate it into his own work. What's more, Reynaldo is young and still learning; following his growth since Rob Hanes' first appearances in fanzine work, through Adventure Strip Digest, and now into this title, is to see a talented artist learn from his mistakes and find new ways to tell traditi6nal adventure tales.
All three of these issues, as well as the earlier Hanes stories mentioned above, are available from Reynaldo's self-publishing enterprise, wcgcomics.com.
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