Comics: Occult Crimes Taskforce

When I say 'Rosario Dawson' most of you will associate actress, mega babe, 'Clerks 2', and the like. I'd risk a guess and say that few of you would associate the name with 'comic book creator'. It's true nerds; she's nerdly.

'Occult Crimes Taskforce' is a four issue mini-series published by Image Comics in mid 2006. The story contained within tells of a special branch of the Manhattan Police Force put together to handle cases that are occult in origin, as the name suggests.

Per the wikipedia link above, Rosario was a 'co-creator' with David Atchinson listed as the writer. Be this that Rosario contributed ideas, helped write, I don't know. One thing I do know however, is that she lent her likeness to that of main character, Sophia Ortiz.

The art work for OCT is interesting as it takes on a real world quality. The panels pass for as real as possible as opposed to the spandex speedo's of the normal comic book set as well as looking more photoshopped than illustrated. I can't say I'm fully in love with the style; that hand illustrated artwork is part of what made me fall in love with comic books in the first place. Still, this photorealistic look of the OCT art works in this setting and helps to provide a gritty and over all 'morose' atmosphere to the darker side of New York City.

My problem with OCT lies in the writing. The story? Good stuff. The ideas, themes, and plots? Again, good stuff. At times though, the narrative takes some odd leaps and bounds from the natural flow of dialog and story telling that'll leave you scratching your head between one page and the next. Once you can adapt to this problem however, the story itself is solid and entertaining.
I don't know how much of a part Rosario herself took in the writing portion of the script. She's no Warren Ellis yet, but she's made a solid first showing. It fares far better than most celebrity attempts at jumping media boundries do.

Eric mentioned her comic being optioned for a show called 'True Believers' a few weeks back, but from my internet detective skills, I can only find the 'Occult Crimes Taskforce' series credited to Ms. Dawnson. If any of you out there have more info on 'True Believers', point me at it!

And as for Ms. Dawson, I thought you were dreamy before. But after learning of your affecting for comics and other nerdly things, you've officially been promoted to 'awesome'.

Update: Further searching shows that 'True Believers is not based on a comic, or OCT; it is produced by Dawson and written by her co-writer on OCT. Clicky for more.