Dark Corridor, Vol. 1

This graphic novel delivers a paranoid, multi-layered crime and romance yarn. Strongly recalling lurid 1970s exploitation films, the cartooning is slick, stylized, and inventive, featuring characters as starkly designed as Dick Tracy and his rogues' gallery. The story follows the Seven Deadly Daughters, vengeance-obsessed women cut from the same cloth as the Bride of Tarantino's Kill Bill. The jump-cut plot meanders until halfway through, when an on-the-run love story between one of the Daughters and a gritty criminal takes center stage. The cartoony sensibility helps leaven the extreme, bloody violence, and works in favor of the over-the-top car chase action. Bright colors and smart compositions make the panels pop. This is an enjoyable, moody tale, but the chopped-up storytelling may frustrate many readers. (June)