Daisy Jane and Rock
Bradley are bank robbers, operating in the Southwest in the 1970s. But Frank Barbiere's
story opens 1987, with retired US Marshal Lou telling their tale to
young Penny, flashing back to the late Sixties and early Seventies,
to Daisy Jane's path into a life of crime, and to his own
intersection with her and rock while on the track of the notorious La
Jauria drug cartel. Violent Love is violent, and there is love, but
mostly it is a fast-paced thriller that claims to be 'inspired by
true events'.
It's not hard to see
what some of those events might be, but Violent Love also wears its
influences proudly. Not least music. The opening epigram comes from
the punk band Beach Slang, and while that meant nothing to me, when
you read the lyrics the art by Victor Santos can carry you away in
those kinds of beats. In fact, you could look at this work as a sort
of mix between elements of films as diverse as Badlands, The Outfit
or The Grifters. 
The mix comes from the noirish sense of doom and the
pulpy story-telling of Seventies crime movies, crossed with the
anarchic energy of punk, music of a more violent sort of crime era.
The closest comparisons would be to Carl Franklin's One False Move,
or, perhaps even closer, to the now-forgotten crime-spree thriller
set in Texas, Love And A .45, starring a young Renee Zellweger.
The mix comes from the noirish sense of doom and the
pulpy story-telling of Seventies crime movies, crossed with the
anarchic energy of punk, music of a more violent sort of crime era.
The closest comparisons would be to Carl Franklin's One False Move,
or, perhaps even closer, to the now-forgotten crime-spree thriller
set in Texas, Love And A .45, starring a young Renee Zellweger.
This is not to say
Violent Love is simply derivative, but that it wears its influences,
and their eras well. It's also telling that Image Comics bills the
story as “crime/romance”, and the cover of the fifth issue of the
original series is done beautifully in the style of a romance comic.
In the sense that comics are our modern pulp magazines, or pulp
novels, it is perhaps inevitable that they should have discovered an
affinity for the story-telling of violent noirish
B-movie crime. I've praised the work of Ed Brubaker here many times,
and Barbiere bears comparison with him, though with Santos' art, he
moves in a more dynamic, faster-paced kind of accelerated
story-telling. It's a compelling read.
Violent Love Vol. 1:
Stay Dangerous
by Frank J Barbiere
& Victor Santos
Image Comics 2017,
$9.99 ISBN 9781534300446
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