Fairmont's Neil Sabatino launches Black Hat comic

Black Hat #1 by Neil Sabatino

Black Hat, the new webcomic by Fairmont frontman Neil Sabatino, plays out like a bizarro mash-up of Don Quixote and Kick-Ass. Our protagonist is Gregor Grayson, a record store clerk from New Jersey, who sleepwalks through life while internally retreating into a world of ultraviolent superheroics. Inside his head, Grayson is a superhero dutybound to protect the human race, and the world around him largely consists of evil robots hellbent on destroying it. The book’s gimmick is the visual and narrative juxtaposition of Grayson’s actions in his fantasy world and the impact they have on his behavior in the real world.

As you can imagine, this makes for a non-traditional narrative that is often challenging to follow along with, but Sabatino takes it another step further. In addition to switching between these two perspectives on reality, the book also abruptly jumps back and forth between disparate moments in Grayson’s day-to-day life. Since our protagonist is a mentally unbalanced dude with delusions of grandeur and a hazy view of reality, this is a totally appropriate way to tell his story... but for me, the end result of this approach sort of teeters on the fence between awesomeness and sloppiness. A more focused and grounded view of the “real” world is something I’d definitely like to see in future issues. It would make the fantasy sequences more effective, and would illuminate Sabatino’s intended themes more clearly. Is this a commentary on the evolution of consumer culture? A serious look at mental illness? Just a goofy take on superhero tropes? Without a firm foothold, it can be difficult to tell.

The art in Black Hat is wonderful. Sabatino’s style immediately brings to mind Tony Millionaire, and at times also reminds me of Jeff Lemire. The layout choices, coloring, and shading are all beautiful and I’m excited to see more from him. However, one major issue I had was with the lettering. I can’t believe I’m actually saying this, as I don’t think I’ve ever taken issue with - or even noticed - the lettering in a comic book before. While the letters in the fantasy sequences are cool and fanciful - often painted in white or rendered in a robotic style - the reality sequences simply contain bland Microsoft Word fonts superimposed over the images. I totally get how this plays in with the overall theme, but there has to be a better way, because this style is ugly, distracting, and completely detracts from the comic as a whole. I never thought lettering could be so important, and it’s unfortunate that it took super crappy lettering to open my eyes to that fact. I really hope Sabatino reconsiders this particular choice.

Black Hat has a couple of problems, but hey, it’s only the first issue. I think the story has a hell of a lot of potential and if some of these minor things are addressed, this could end up being a fun, thoughtful and beautiful comic book. In addition, the issue ended with a genuinely intriguing cliffhanger, so I’ll definitely be keeping my eye on this book in the future.

You can download free issues of “Black Hat” at http://www.fairmontmusic.com/BlackHat/TheBlackHat.html.

Chadd Derkins enjoys reading comic books, playing video games, and watching movies. Then he writes about those things at the Sense of Right Alliance.