This is a story of a man from New York going to Appalacia to find a supplier for booze and finding more than he planned to. Lou Pirlo finds a lot of questions, not a lot of answers and things that go bump in the night.

Interesting but not something I really want to read more of. ( )

This should have been a 5-star read. Decent writing, and great art. However...

Russo, the artist, has this irritating habit of signing key pages of his artwork which, to me, feels less like he's illustrating a story that I should be invested in, and more like he's already counting the money he's going to get from selling the original artwork. Every time I saw that stylized "Russo", it literally popped me right out of the story.

As well, when it got to the action scenes (particularly right toward the end of the volume), I literally could not tell who was who. Sorry, but it felt like Russo just got lazy to me.

Second, while it's fairly good and fairly basic storyline, there are times when between the generic shoot-em-up art that was tough to decipher, there were also sections where it seemed like Azzarello took leaps in story logic, pinging us to the next scene with no transition to help the reader along. At least three or four times, I had to go back and re-read a previous page, because I felt I'd missed something. Going back never helped.

I've got volume 2 (bought on the strength of this team's 100 Bullets storytelling), so we'll see if it improves. But if not, I'm out. ( )

All this crime/horror hybrid book has going for it is its sort of clever wordplay in the title and premise, combining werewolves with a gang war over moonshine alcohol. The execution falls flat as the story revolves around a jackass loser who is caught as a hapless pawn between the big city mob, hillbilly distillers and supernatural forces. There weren't any characters in this bad-people-doing-bad-things story I could support or care about. It's hard to want to read a book where you just hope everyone ends up dead.

I don't think I've read a good Brian Azzarello book since the first few volumes of 100 Bullets, and I think it's time to stop giving him the benefit of the doubt when he comes out with something new. ( )

I received this from Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.

Not sure what I just read. The first issue seemed to be about a liquor deal during prohibition between a New York gangster and a hillbilly moonshiner. After that, the story went off the rails, and was extremely hard to follow. The artwork didn't help either.

I don't think I'll continue this series. ( )

A new title by writer Brian Azzarello and artist Eduardo Risso was always going to be worth investigating. 100 bullets was an exciting and dynamic series and even though it began to groan under the weight of its convolutedness towards the end, its a series I still hold in high regard.

Moonshine is set in the prohibition-era, when a New York gangster is sent to Appalachia in order to find a brewer of high-quality whiskey in the mountains and make him an offer he can't refuse. Except it turns out that the Hiram Holt and his extended family are more than just men.

The artwork is outstanding - Risso is in his element here with the dark, moonlit environments, whether in the city or the forests. The story works well with genre conventions while allowing the mysteries to unfold in a satisfying way. All in all this a great first volume and well worth a read if the creative team, or concept sound interesting. ( )