Lowlifes #1 Review

The florist always knocks thrice...

Writer: Brian BuccellatoArtist: Alexis SentenacPublisher: IDW PublishingRelease Date: July 4, 2018Cover Price: $3.99
Review by: Pauly P.

Beat cop Richard just isn’t having a good run lately. In two days he will be dead, shot in the head by a lowlife who barely knows how to use a gun. In the meantime, his job is a mess, and a lowlife rapist & florist has set his sights on his beautiful wife Denise again. His partner knows of a guy that can make problems go away, but at what price? How far down the horrible rabbit hole will he go to get revenge on the man targeting his wife? Let’s see if we can get some answers.


We open in the present, and Richard is in the car with some random lowlife as they wait outside a house in suburbia as the narration tells us about how at some point, you just have to make a choice. Richard gets his head blown off in a rather gruesome shot point blank by the thug who didn’t even know how to use a gun. What’s happened? Apparently fucked his wife, for one. Something escalated quickly!



We then go to 2 days in the past, and Richard is racing home to find a florist van leaving his apartment complex. He starts to race after, but a female voice tells him his wife needs him. This... florist and his wife have a history. This is the third delivery this week, and at some point in the recent past he actually raped her, and Richard was the one to find her. She sits alone while Richard desperately wants to do something to help, but he feels powerless and useless. Cut to work, with his partner. She reminds him she knows a guy named Wendell who can get things done and he won’t have to get his hands dirty.

Cut to dinner break, and boy is it ever a three carnitas kind of night when Richard spots his rapist nemesis and tackles him, pressing his gun against his head as he’s reminded he’s not a killer and lets him go. We close watching Richard walk into Wendell’s store.

Bits and pieces:

Definitely not what I was expecting from an IDW book. It has a very Vertigo/Image feel. It’s gritty, crime noir told in a flashback narrative. It has a great sense of realism and I really get how torn Richard is about wanting to do something to help his wife and his marriage... and his job as a Cop. We know where it ends, but the interesting bit is seeing how it all unfolds. The art is nice, gritty and really suits the tone of the story.

8/10