The increasingly direct link from comic book to film property has prompted at least one studio to go straight to comic books with their best new story. Echo Lake Entertainment has partnered with American Gothic Press for its new assassin mystery NICE.
Welcome to NICE. We’ve got assassins, bored hipsters, deranged detectives, and the electric glow of an LA smog sunset. The transport is a ’69 GTO and the drinks are upright Manhattans, with a cherry. Blood and death are just part of a normal day, man.
Jose and Kevin, a couple of bar-hopping hipster dudes, are running errands for a massive crime organization in Los Angeles, and they’re a little bit in over their heads. It’s clear they’re not quite at the top of their game when they drive a masked man to his hit point and take off for drinks after five minutes of waiting.
Meanwhile, said masked man’s attempt at a quick break in and snuff job has gone to hell because the target, Detective Hanin, is a slightly psychopathic, drug-addicted ball-buster who’s set a trap. Much blood later, the masked man is a pulpy corpse, and Hanin has one more clue to unlocking the mystery of NICE.
Jose and Kevin are a kind of unlikely assassin-aiding odd couple. Kevin is an obsessive, bizarre, socially awkward sociopath who tries to pick up Grace, one of NICE’s top assassins, at a bar before understanding that she’s basically his boss. Jose is a down to earth musician wannabe who thinks Kevin’s methods are a bit too unconventional when he botches a clean up job by blowing the victim’s head off. But something about the way Kevin works is attractive to NICE, because Grace keeps meeting him for coffee, giving him new assignments.
Precinct blood worker Phil catches on to Hanin when he realizes the crime scene with the masked man doesn’t fit her claim of self-defense. After leaking a piece of information that has Hanin slamming him against a bathroom wall in rage, Phil decides to join her in an off-duty crusade to try to find the guys who sent the masked man and what organization they work for.
Hanin is hiding some serious secrets, and not even witnessing people get their heads blown off point blank is going to set her off course. She’s a bit of a beast, hardly human anymore, would rather pass out in an impounded car than do anything the old fashioned way. But nobody escapes NICE – not cops, not innocent old men who lose their heads for talking too much, and certainly not Jose and Kevin, who are not going to make it through their initiation unscathed.
In Shops: Dec 05, 2018
SRP: $3.99
