Bouncer: Cain's Eye

French artists Jodorowsky (Technopriests, Son of the Gun) and Boucq (La Femme du Magicien) have depicted an American west more tormented than wild, filled with looting, rape and blood. The story follows three brothers and their mother, Aunty Lola, ""the wildest whore in the West"" through the South at the close of the Civil War. The story opens with Ralton, the second son, a captain in the Confederate army and leader of a large group of renegade Confederate soldiers who refuse to believe that the South has fallen. In need of money to fund his gang, Ralton returns to the West in search of a large diamond, the Eye of Cain, which Lola hid. The diamond eventually leads to her demise as well as the dissolution of the family. Blake, the oldest, grows up as a killer and turns to God. The youngest grows up to disown his name and refer to himself as ""Bouncer."" When Ralton kills Blake in his search for the diamond, Blake's son seeks out Bouncer for answers. It may be the French understanding of the American West or it may be the translation, but the language in the book is stilted and forced, lacking rhythm. The story lacks cohesion, and Jodorowsky's characters don't interact, talking at one another not to each other. Boucq's art is detailed and graphic, portraying a violent and bloody world but also panoramic scenes of the Old West's deep canyons and lush greens. He draws the dust and grit of the era with a deft hand. His characters bear the leathery skin and sun impressed wrinkles of a dry, chapped life filled with work and whiskey. For its faults, Bouncer, while shying away from John Wayne Americana, shows a harsher reality of an American era, one that is more violent, but possibly more accurate.