"Pretty Deadly: Vol 1 The Shrike" is a mythical, mystic trip into the Wild West underworld

The blind man, Fox, is wise, or at least he seems to be.  Wearing a blindfold to cover his eyes, he goes from town to town, with a little girl, Sissy, who wears a vulture costume and has mismatching colored eyes (one is brown, the other blue), and he tells the story of Death and how He came to love, and even create an offspring.  The Wild West where these characters exist - an with what other creatures and beings they co-exist - is a mythical land of the fantastical and supernatural, even mystical, but also of the ultra-violent and brutal.  It is a place resembling nightmares rather than dreams, a setting even the Sandman himself might find a bit harsh to survive in.

Writer Kelly Sue DeConnick incorporates plenty of poetical, lyrical and even folklore elements into her fantasy Western.  Each episode/monthly issue begins with a conversation between two animals, one of which is a rabbit, living or dead, and often they end in a barrage of violence.  Artist Emma Rios' illustrations are colorful and even sexually graphic, but often confusing: it is sometimes hard to tell whether the characters she's drawing are fighting or dancing with each other.  When Death's daughter, Ginny, finally decides to take her vengeance against those she's been set on killing, the resulting climax is bound to leave readers scratching their heads, rather than getting any closure on everything they've read so far.

Pretty Deadly Vol 1: The Shrike is an ambitious comic, to be sure, but perhaps it is too full of its own grand ideas about life and death, about love and loss, to be much of an entertainment as a result.  It also suffers from murky and muddy artwork, which is unclear and confusing more often than not.  Its characters are stuff of legend rather than flesh and blood, and their quests are grand in scope and myth, leaving the impression of Shakespearean tragic heroes rather than heroines we can identify with.  I certainly will remember much of what I read and saw in this story for a long time to come.  The thing is, I may not want to read it again anytime soon.
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