SWEETIE: CANDY VIGILANTE #1, from Dynamite Comics on October 5th, 2022, begins a bizarre fantasy about a magical vigilante who uses her unique candy weapons to exact bloody justice. Be nice, or you’ll be picking your sweet tooth up off the floor.
The Details
- Written by: Suzanne Cafiero
- Art by: Jeff Zornow
- Colors by: Antonio Fabella
- Letters by: Josh Howard, DC Hopkins
- Cover art by: Jeff Zornow (cover A)
- Cover price: $3.99
- Release date: October 5, 2022
Is It Good?
Well, SWEETIE: CANDY VIGILANTE #1 is weird. It has potential. It’s certainly different. And it’s totally weird.
The main plot involves a magical relative of Candy Man (not the Candy Man with a hook hand and bees. The other Cany man from the song.) named Sweetie. Sweetie wanders around the mean streets of the city and inflicts gruesome harm on naughty people. There doesn’t appear to be a pattern or strategy to Sweetie’s actions. She just looks for trouble.
On the plus side, Sweetie is a creative and unique character. Cafiero’s creation is a surreal mix of Jennifer Blood, Harley Quinn, and a dash of Juliet Starling from Chainsaw Lollipop. Sweetie is colorful, bold, and audacious, so there’s plenty of intrigue surrounding who Sweetie is, where she came from, and where she’s going next.
The downside is the lack of setup and motivation for Sweetie’s character. In fairness, there’s a preface on the first page to explain Sweetie’s character, but it’s lacking in background. More of Sweetie’s background may come to light in later issues, so for now, you simply have to accept she’s here and she does things seemingly at random.
With apologies for the bad pun, the art is “delicious.” Zornow’s lines are clean, the violence is shockingly gory, and the character designs are as creative as the story. Zornow’s style is reminiscent of Ken Haeser of The Living Corpse series, so if you’re familiar with The Living Corpse, you’ll already have a taste (*heh*) of the artwork here.
Keep scrolling for a closer look at the covers, or Click Here to jump right to the story description with some spoilers.
What’s It About?
[SPOILERS AHEAD – Click here if you just want the score without spoilers]
We begin with Sweetie approaching a city establishment on a snowy night at Christmastime. The sign says “Ice Cream Bunny,” but contrary to outward appearances, the store is really a seedy bar and strip joint. Sweetie, unaware of the subversive marketing, enters the establishment to order ice cream and meet the Ice Cream Bunny.
When the rough-and-tumble patrons decide Sweetie’s good looks are an unwanted invitation for personal touching, Sweetie decides to deliver sweet treats to her attackers. She melts faces with acid Pixie Stick powder. She severs limbs with Red Vines, and she pops brains with exploding bubble gum.
We conclude the issue with a twisted charlie Bronw moment, Gummy Grizzlies, and a warning to “be good for goodness sake.”
Keep scrolling for a closer look at preview images of the internal pages, or Click Here to jump right to the score.
Final Thoughts
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SWEETIE: CANDY VIGILANTE #1 is a creative vision for a new type of killer vigilante with solid art, including gory action. However, the setup is too sparse to understand much about the character other than she gets a kick out of killing naughty people. Intriguing idea but shallow execution.
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