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Knowing when not to say anything-- a review of Greg Rucka and Matthew Southworth's Stumptown

Matching Rucka’s writing, Matthew Southworth is a great artist for this series. Like Sean Phillips and Michael Lark, he has a very natural and understated style that’s enhanced by creating a shadowy and morally ambiguous world. Southworth creates a very real world for Dex without getting lost in the details. Like Rucka, he knows when to let the reader do the work and fill in the blanks. He provides enough details about Dex and Ansel’s house to make it a real place from scene to scene. From a few simple panels, we can immediately know the layout of Dex’s house and even what shelf in the refrigerator she keeps her frozen peas, mostly used to compress bruises more than as a side dish at dinner. Sue-Lynne’s casino and office are real places. Her office is not a place you want to get called in to. Southworth is not faking any of the settings or making any of this up as he goes along. Each scene has a very solid sense of time and place thanks to Southworth’s artwork.

Read the full review at Popdose.