What a week it’s been. I’m sure I’ve written before about how my weekly comic pickups swing from feast to famine based on what’s been released. I was wholly unprepared to get not one but TWO thick $10 books in my pull along with a bunch of normal sized books. It’s a good problem to have but as the kids say, I literally just can’t with these books right now.
Instead of reading what I bought or delving into the new Paper Girls series on Amazon Prime or Harley Quinn on HBO Max I got bored and pulled up all the carpet in the main hallway of my house. I spent hours pulling up tack strips and removing staples from the hardwood with a pair of needle-nose pliers. My back an knees are…not great right now.
It’s hard to argue with the end result but when I was done I was literally physically unable to do anything else so it was time for comics. As luck (hey-hey) would have it, my email pinged and let me know I had a new book from Top Shelf Productions waiting for me to read it and it was precisely what I needed today.
The Bend of Luck
Peter and Maria Hoey
Top Shelf Productions
The Bend of Luck is a twisting tale from sibling due Peter and Maria Hoey that very much lives up to the kind of book I’ve come to expect from Top Shelf Productions. Here’s the blurb:
Imagine a world where Luck, the most ephemeral of ideas, has a physical form. Precious stones of luck, mined like gold, are worn as bringers of fortune. But luck breaks both ways. While the blue gems may grant advantage to those who wear them, their blessing is fickle and unpredictable. In the blink of an eye, good luck can turn to bad. We follow the life of a man who comes into possession of some powerful stones — but the success enjoyed by the father goes awry when he tries to pass this luck onto his son. In alternating scenes between the two generations, The Bend of Luck follows fortune’s course, like an arrow, through a family’s destiny.
I feel like a hack-y ‘80s comedian when I type “what a concept!” but that’s exactly what struck me about The Bend of Luck. We’ve all likely known someone who has lead a charmed life, someone who had fortune smile upon them in all endeavors, or otherwise managed to just fail upward through life. If we’re being honest, we’ve all thought about why they’re so special, what is it that they have that we don’t?
The ideas that luck has a physical form and is a thing that certain people have and others don’t certainly makes life more sense when looking at the big picture. The Bend of Luck is a fascinating read in that it shows that the universe ultimately seeks balance and short term gains can’t be maintained forever. I was also interested in the characters in the book that were not using luck to their advantage, normal people for lack of a better term. There may be some subtext here that staying the course and just being you is enough because everything tends to workout in the end.
