When I was young ‘Star Wars’ was one of my favourite movies, so when ‘Empire’ came out I rushed to the cinema to see it and at the time I was disappointed.  Not because of the movie in general, but because of the downbeat ending.  It was only later, after ‘Jedi’ proved that a happy ending with Ewoks is not necessarily a better thing, that I really began to appreciate it as the best of the three films.

Fast forward far too many years and I am not going to make the same mistake with ‘Day of the Deal’, Jason Wilson’s follow up to ‘Smuggling Vacation’, which was one of the best comics I have ever read.  The reason for my dragging up ‘Star Wars’ is because there are certain elements of ‘Day of the Deal’ compared  to ‘Smuggling Vacation’ that remind me of the differences between ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Empire’.  No, you are not going to discover that Pastille Jones is actually Stan’s father, but you will find betrayal by a friend, albeit in a Maccy D’s rather than a floating cloud city and there is a downbeat ending with one of the characters taken away in a police car rather than by stormtroopers in a block of carbonite, but there is a certain similarity in feel between the two.  In fact ‘Day of the Deal’ could have been subtitled ‘The Police Strike Back’, as this time the procedural background concentrates more on the police operation, whereas ‘Smuggling Vacation’ was condemned in some circles as being a ‘How To...’ book for wannabe drug smugglers, which is such a stupid idea that it really is not worth going into at all, except to point out how much time some politicians and journalists have to waste on pointless crusades.  I just hope that the emphasis on the side of law and order was, as it seems to be, a legitimate plot device, rather than a response to all the criticism.

The artwork still has a comic-dynamic, BD style which recalls ‘Asterix’ in its more manic moments and is perfectly suited for the lives of the characters it portrays, but seems more relaxed here than in its predecessor as Jason Wilson develops as an artist and there is also a greater freedom in his framing that marks this out as an improvement on ‘Smuggling Vacation’.  The script still retains a realism in its characterisation that works whether in the out and out funny bits or in the serious and even romantic ones.  It is a shame that there aren’t as many little background actions, which brought an extra layer of depth to the first comic, but this is in keeping with the more serious overall tone of this one.

So, overall a better comic in many ways than ‘Smuggling Vacation’, but with a downbeat ending that leaves you unsatisfied at first, but which then leaves you looking forward even more to the next instalment in this outstanding series of comics.  One word of advice though Jason: easy on the ewoks please.

9