In 1915, Abigail Moore became one of the first female police officers in Hollywood. But beneath the glamorous surface of Tinseltown beats a rotten heart full of corruption, greed, and lies, and Abigail’s about to dive head-first into all of it.

By Matt Vroom

TINSEL TOWN #1 and #2 are the first two issues in a five-issue limited series published by ALTERNA COMICS. It was written by David Lucarelli, with art by Henry Ponciano, and lettering done by HdE.

I originally was going to just release a review of the first issue, but as you would have it, life can get in the way. Not too unlike this story of a young woman who dreamt of being a police officer in a world where the idea of a woman putting on the badge came with a lot of scorn.

The first issue begins as a brief “origin” story that introduces us to the motives of our main protagonist, Abigail Moore. Her father was a police officer who served on the force while Abigail was young, and he died in the line of duty. However, despite the loss, Abigail wanted to live up to his legacy.

She could never get around to it though and she lived a life of mediocrity. She was like any other single woman during the 1920s. While the men were off to war, Abilgail picked up odd jobs to pay for all the booze that kept her internal pain away. That was until something out of the mundane happened for Abigail.

Utopia Studios was looking for people to fill in the vacancies of its Utopia City. They were holding auditions for all sorts of openings. One of these caught the eye of Abigail, a chance to be a female officer. A “real” opportunity to live out her secret lifelong dream.

Yeah, I get it might look like I just rehashed the first issue a little bit. However, I felt like it was a good jumping on point to create further discussion on issue two of this series.

Like how society is sometimes, we are advertised great opportunities. Guys on YouTube claim that you can get a six pack in six weeks with little training and you can eat whatever you want! They claim to have the secret to physical health and a surefire way to give you the hardest body you’ve never had. Others claim that you know nothing about money and that if you buy into their mentorship that you will learn the way of sure success and might become a millionaire in the end.

These two guys have one thing in common…they’re phonies. They promise impossible results in an even more impossible time frame. They put on big shows to get you to “drink the kool-aid,” and you buy into it until you discover that they ripped you off and left you in the dust.

Tinseltown is kind of like that. It is dressed up in so much glam, promises so much for your cooperation. Yet if you get into it too deep then you might never come out, and if you do then you will never be the same.

Abigail is starting to see that the promises of Upotia City are just fluff. In issue two she just barely gets a glimpse of the dark deceit that is just below the surface.

There are things that I do like about this story and things that I don’t. I do like that it paces like a noir film. Instead of the stereotypical Dick Tracy-esque male detective, it is a woman who is trying to make a name for herself while unraveling her own mystery.

I feel like the art style works is spot on for the noir feel, and the flat color pallet matches the tone. What I don’t like is how slow the story is. I felt like the first issue teased that we were going to get into the deep mystery of Utopia Studios. I had hoped that we’d get into it in this second issue. However, we don’t even get much of tease of something bad happening until literally the last panel of issue two.

I do hope that we get to get into the meat of the story in issue three. That is something that I am looking forward to reading. Overall, I am going to give this series 6.5 capes out of 10. Not that it is a bad story, but maybe because I was expecting a little more by the second issue. I am definitely going to pick up issue three because of the hope that I have that this does turn out to be a great female lead, character-driven story.

If you have a comic that you would like me to review, then please feel free to email me at matt@superherospeak.com, or Dave at dave@superherospeak.com.

Matt Vroom – Comic Reviewer for SuperHeroSpeak.com.

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