Comic Book Review - Scalped: Casino Boogie

May 7th, 2008 by Brian | Filed under Comic Book, Graphic Novel, Review.

Writer: Jason Aaron
Pencilers: R. M. Guéra
Cover Artist: R. M. Guéra
Publisher: Vertigo
Publication Date: February, 2008
Format:TPB

It’s a big night on the Prairie Rose Indian Reservation — the grand opening of the multimillion-dollar Crazy Horse Casino.

For Tribal Leader and organized crime boss Lincoln Red Crow, it’s the fruition of thirty years of dreaming, scheming and killing. For FBI Special Agent Dashiell Bad Horse, it’s just another night risking his neck undercover in Red Crow’s organization. For Dash’s mother, Gina Bad Horse, it’s a painful reminder of how things have gone irrevocably wrong. For wannabe-Indian Diesel Engine, it’s his big chance to prove himself to the Red Power movement. For the mysterious medicine man known as Catcher, it’s a night of signs and visions.

And for ONE of them, it will be their last night on Earth.

One of the interesting things about Casino Boogie is how it changes things up from Indian Country. In Indian Country we are introduced to Bad Horse as our main protagonist and through 5 issues the plot follows him through a linear path in which we get to know some of the other main characters and a bit of the workings of The Rez. But if Indian Country is a story told linearly then Casino Boogie spreads out and is told laterally. This manifests itself in a few ways.

Issue #6 acts as a good transition between these two different story telling styles because it follows a similar pattern to the previous 5 issues allowing us to shadow Bad Horse before imparting on us the important textual lesson that he is not the only character. In this volume we will start to see the broader canvass of characters, their fractured personal histories and the intricately plotted connections that inform their depths.

Red Crow becomes further a Shakespearean figure carrying the weight on his shoulders, the weight of identity, the weight of history and the weight of power. He is compelling, interesting and dare I say that he is a tragic figure; I do have to wonder if his days are numbered. Gina Bad Horse decade’s later still carries the wounds of one moment in time, when two federal agents were killed, and still can’t reconcile the embodiment of ‘the end justifies the means’ that everyone and everything around her has become. She will be a catalyst for explosive change. For Catcher, the alcoholic medicine man, it remains to be seen if he is strong enough to handle what he sees, and more importantly, what he will do. He is the wildcard. Interestingly it’s in Diesel, a white man who claims a 1/16th Kickapoo heritage and self identifies as an Indian, that we get an interesting study in identity politics. He is fervent in his belief of the purity of his heritage but revels in the stereotypical trappings of the race. He is a caricature but a dangerous and violent one. He is a steam roller plowing through everything so his role remains unclear. Dino Poor Bear, who we saw in the first volume, comes from a once powerful family, and is ambitious but a dreamer. His story will be an interesting one, to see if he becomes a pawn moved by greater forces or accumulates some power and changes the configuration of the board. His is a character to watch.

One other way that Casino Boogie spreads out laterally is that it approaches a near-Ulyssean portrait of one single day. Though each section will focus on just one character of this diverse cast the larger exploration of the nuances and facets of the day from every direction possible won’t be lost. It’s an exercise in precise plotting to weave together this tapestry of characters and events and Aaron’s skills are improving with each book.

This touches on something that is demonstrable here; that each issue functions as a complete story arc but progresses the larger narrative arc forward. This can be a hard balance to strike sometimes, especially in this age of graphic novels, but Aaron never forgets those readers who are purchasing each individual issue on a monthly basis.

Sometime the punch you dont see coming is the one that just hit you. That’s how I felt a couple of times while reading Casino Boogie. Aaron is such a skilled writer that he literally repeats and recycles not one but two reveals from the first volume. But the damdest thing is that you just don’t see it coming. It’s a deft trick that I would imagine is a tough one to pull off but yet again Aaron nails it.

Casino Boogie capitalizes on the strengths that were shown in Indian Country and improves at every level to tell a compelling and interesting story. It will take us from the top of the power structure all the way down to the kid who mops the floor of the casino and everyone in between. We will go from fifty-five years ago to the present. We will go to the spirit world and come back changed. What’s next? Dunno but I can’t wait.

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