Thief of Thieves Vol. 3: Venice

This is it the Venice job Conrad has been planning for three years; the plan he has been working on when he up & quit.  Conrad has played almost everybody in this book so far & this is only the third volume.  Andy Diggle jumps on for this arc which is awesome because this kind of heist is right up is alley.  There is definitely going to be some major fallout from this volume especially where Arno is concerned.  I really want to see Agent Cohen shine at some point, it seems they keep building to her big moment & then she gets played for such a fool.  I mean she seems to be smarter than the rest of the agents in her division & she even knows she got played at the end of this book.  The Venice job is similar to something from Oceans 11 mixed with the Italian Job.  Its simplistic on paper but the attention to detail makes it seem so complicated.  Again this is were the art & the layout shine, it perfectly complements the story were the writing leaves off.  By the end of this volume the look on Conrad's face says it all.  I still don't know as a reader if everything went the way he planned, but it seems that it did.  I really want to know what is going to happen next.

Thief of Thieves Vol. 2: Help Me

Robert Kirkman's  Thief of Thieves is certainly becoming one of my new favorite titles out there on the market today.  This volume he co-writes with James Asmus, the only other book I've read by Asmus was Gambit which I can say was OK but not stellar.  This volume is not as good as its predecessor but it does have one hell of a cliffhanger.  This volume is all about Conrad & Augustus working together but its primary goal is to set up future story arcs by leaving a lot of loose ends.  The first volume on the other hand was just supposed to set the tone for the entire series.  But once you reach the end of this volume you will immediately want to pick up the next one.  

Thief of Thieves Vol. 1: I Quit

If Neal Caffrey & Daniel Ocean were the same person they would be Conrad Paulson.  This is an awesome book in terms of writing, art & story.  Robert Kirkman the creator of The Walking Dead is co-writing this book with Nick Spencer.  If you love heist movies or stories this is a title for you.  This is a story that really relies on the artwork to move the story along there pages of panels without text that tell an essential part of the story without the work of Shawn Martinbrough this series would not have been as effective.  This is how you write a heist book compared to the previous title I read Supercrooks; this was the superior read.  I like how conflicted Conrad is about his life but I like that he has a plan to make sure life plays by his rules.  Elizabeth Cohen seems to be a fairly competent F.B.I. agent but in the end is just stuck with a bad hand that she was dealt.  I like where this is going, I really hope this turns into a television show it would definitely give White Collar a run for its money.       

Science Dog Vol. 1

I picked this up because it had Robert Kirkman’s name on it; The Walking Dead anybody.  Unlike Bryan K. Vaughan not everything Kirkman writes is gold with the exception of The Walking Dead.  This story reads like a missing chapter of a larger story & for that there is no real payoff to this story.  The main character is actually kind of cool & his origin is explained early on is the story but everything he does is for selfish reasons that don’t really seem fleshed out enough.  If you like a good time travel tale that is simple & straight forward then you’ll like this, but don’t expect much depth or character development.  I found out after the fact that this is spin-off of Kirkman’s Invincible series, maybe this will make more sense if I read that series as well.