I began buying and reading Stray Bullets with the first comic book issue in 1995 and followed it over the next decade, but with its irregular schedule and a hiatus, I'm not sure I ever got the final issue of the first series. Thanks to this giant omnibus from the library, I am finally able to re-read the first 41 issues as one big ass and awesome graphic novel.

My thoughts on the first 14 issues from a review I wrote in 1998:

Though I'm sure Lapham must be sick of the comparison by now, the parallels to be drawn between STRAY BULLETS and PULP FICTION are irresistible to reviewers such as myself. How am I supposed to ignore the fact that two incredibly talented individuals have chosen the same genre and techniques to tell a slew of riveting stories? Both Tarantino and Lapham use non-linear chronology to tell closely interwoven tales of crimes and the people who perpetrate them. Just as Tarantino's three stories jumped hypnotically back and forth through time -- allowing a character killed in the middle of the movie to appear hale and hearty later in the film -- the fourteen issues of STRAY BULLETS skip all over the calendar: starting in 1997 with #1, jumping back to 1977 with #2, and erratically staggering through the late '70s and '80s as Lapham slowly works his way back to the '90s. That Lapham and Tarantino both write rat-a-tat dialogue, create vivid and complex characters, and use shocking violence to maintain a heightened tension simply clinches the comparison for me.

STRAY BULLETS began with a bang. Come to think of it, STRAY BULLETS #1 may be the one of the best first issues ever, telling a chilling and brutal tale of murder, insanity, and unrequited love. I don't want to tell any more about it, for fear of ruining it for any newbies in the audience. Suffice it to say, the story is set in 1997 and features a character, Joey, who appears as a boy throughout the rest of the series. In some ways, the series is about this lad and the unfortunate events that shape the man he becomes.

The main character of STRAY BULLETS, however, is Virginia Applejack. Introduced as a young girl, Virginia's life becomes a long sequence of escalating troubles after witnessing an alleyway murder. Schoolyard violence, sexual molestation, domestic abuse, and family tragedy all contribute to Virginia's need to run away from home. Her wanderings bring her into contact with Orson, Beth and Nina. This trio, whose backstory gets as much "screen time" as Virginia's, consists of three young, confused adults on the lam from a crime boss and his thugs with two suitcases of stolen cocaine. Obviously, involvement with the trio is not going to improve Virginia's quality of life. Virginia's only outlet from her awful reality is through stories she writes of her futuristic outlaw doppelganger, Amy Racecar. (Feature-length Amy Racecar stories appear in issues #6, #10 and a color special.) For me, the point of the series boils down to one question: Will Amy Racecar and Virginia's own sensibility keep Virginia from travelling the same troubled path as Joey?

Twenty-five years later, I think the book holds up pretty well. And reading it all together for the first time, I can see the through line clearly and tell all the characters apart and see the connections as they appear and reappear in the story. There's too much of the imaginary Amy Racecar and there are some digressions in the middle that weren't necessary, but the closing arc with an older and harder Virginia Applejack facing a truly awful high school experience sends the book out on a high note.

I need to catch up on the sequel series now, and ooh, there they are on Hoopla. Soon! ( )