Publisher: Dynamite Comics
Writer: David Walker
Artist: Dietrich Smith
Editor: Joseph Rybandt
Release Date: 20 April 2016
Price: $3.99
Dynamite Comics
Just look at the size of those flares in Shaft Imitation of life #3! This is definitely the Richard Roundtree era Shaft and not for the faint hearted. Frederick Wertham would pitch a fit at what goes on in these pages. Bad language, nudity, sex, violence. I love it!
Take one cool as ice private eye, throw in the Mafia, a dodgy modelling agency, porn movie makers and what have you got? The perfect blend of John Shaft streetwise action for Shaft Imitation of life #3.
David Walker has nailed the character in Shaft Imitation of life #3 and the feel to perfection and Dietrich Smith’s artwork is subtle yet raunchy. We could be back in 1975 but this is even better! For some reason the whole thing reminds me of Jim Steranko’s work on S.H.I.E.L.D. but with more bad language, and if you’re too young to remember that, this could just become your generation’s classic comic book that in thirty years’ time you’ll look back on and say: ‘they don’t write them like that any more.’
Except they do, and here is the proof. Long may Shaft Imitation of life continue.
Reviewer: Gary Orchard
Reviews Editor: Steve Hooker