Flannel-Wearing Bad Ass With Potential

The first issue of Septagon Studios’ Gator Butch provides an interesting blend of comedy and action, that ultimately hits the mark in some places and misses in others.

The end result is a series that is full of potential and just a few steps short of solid.

Let’s just say that Gator Butch as a character is pretty cool. A gator guy wearing a cowboy hat and flannel shirt that kicks major amounts of redneck ass? Sign us up.

If you’re still unsure of the character, think “Crocodile Dundee” meets the Southern atmosphere of “True Blood.”

However, rather than get us fully used to the character, he’s thrust right into action, robbing the reader of a perfect opportunity of getting comfortable with him. As a result, there’s a level of disconnect with him during his first real battle because we don’t know what his real motivations are.

Is he just a monster hunter out for money or is he a hero?

The faster the reader finds this out, the faster they can associate better with him and suspend their disbelief. That’s what good comic book writing is all about. After the first issue, we’re only about halfway done with this process.

While the scene where Butch is hearing voices doesn’t give us much, it’s one of the only instances where we’re allowed to get inside his head. If writer Kurt Belcher is eventually able to get Butch across to his readers, he could get over pretty quick.

Again, it’s pretty hard to not like a tough guy and especially one as cool as Butch.

While the writing isn’t perfect, it gets the job done well enough to keep the reader interested and wanting more.

The thing that ultimately hurts the comic however is the art. Hard to read the faces on the characters, the photoshopped art [reminiscent of the Adult Swim hit show “Tom Goes to the Mayor] is different, but robs the comic of some of the drama that the writing creates. It’s hard to deny the cool factor it presents though. In the end, if artist David Hollenbach could find a way to better manipulate text bubbles and keep every characters faces prominent, the art would work. As of right now, it’s too hard to tell what’s going on, especially in the fighting scenes.

Because of this, the comic has some work to do before it’s truly aesthetically pleasing.

It’s not all for naught though.

With a different type of lead character and equally as different type of art, “Gator Butch” is brimming with potential. Overall, it’s easy to see that the comic has the ability to be a true Indy hit, it just needs more polish before Butch’s real bite can be felt by everyone.

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About Patrick Hickey Jr. 14230 Articles
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports. Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders. His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023. Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief. Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale. Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.

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