SETH’S PICK :: PRETTY DEADLY #3: It’s the end of the year, so I can finally say it: Image produced my favorite monthly comics in 2013.  What I appreciate the most is that their creators can, by and large, keep to themselves and tell the stories they want without having to allot time to company wide shenanigans (crossovers and events, I’m looking at you).  The results are books like Hickman and Dragotta’s East of West, Dingess and Roberts’ Manifest Destiny, Brubaker and Epting’s Velvet, and Remender and Scalera’s Black Science (issue two is also out this week!) – all exciting comics that warrant your monthly attention.

Then there’s Pretty Deadly, the incredible new supernatural western series from Kelly Sue DeConnick, Emma Rios, and Jordie Bellaire.  This series shouldn’t be celebrated just because all of the book’s talented creators happen to be female.  We should celebrate this book because it represents the creators’ best work of their careers.  It’s also, more importantly, a riveting and layered comic book experience.  DeConnick’s writing, which I’ve long been a fan of, is lyrical without being overwrought, poetic without being overly expository, and soulful in its delivery.  Rios’ art is full of fragility and fright.  She captures the vulnerability of  small animals with the same confidence as she does the horrific rage of the daughter of Death himself.  Bellaire, who may well be 2013’s most prolific colorist, doesn’t merely match the tone of the writing and art, but stretches her palette more here than you may have seen in her other works.  It’s early enough in this series to be able to pick up the first two issues at cover price, and I’d encourage you to seek them out.  This is a fine comic book, and one I hope you’ll pick up before the end of the year.