“New York City is an ecosystem where everybody is connected, if only by the streets they walk on. Pawn Shop is the story of four lives out of eight million.”
As the description states, Pawn Shop is the story of New York and some of the people that call it home. It tells the interconnected stories of four random people as they all move in and out of each other’s lives, leaving them a bit better than they were before. The creative team of writer Joey Esposito and artist Sean Von Gorman originally funded the book on Kickstarter in 2012 and now have the finished book ready for print. Currently, it can be pre-ordered from Joey Esposito’s online store.
The four stories of Pawn Shop center on Harold, a widower, Arthur, a nurse, Jen, a punk, and Samantha, a city employee, and the titular pawn shop where their lives all intersect. They’re stories of love and loss, doing the right thing, and ultimately finding happiness. It’s four lives interconnected by seemingly small events and they’re forever changed because of it. It’s a love story, not just for some of the characters involved, but one about the city itself, as New York City seems a character in its own right in some instances.
Esposito writes four tales that connect to each other seamlessly. When one story ends, the next begins, fitting into the previous and the next effortlessly. The stories are heartbreaking and heartwarming all at the same time. To see the very human depths of emotion in the stories, 
but also the very human, and often incredibly warm, interactions between the characters as they flit through each other’s lives can’t help but leave you feeling good. Love and loss, happiness, and doing the right thing, for yourself or others, all come up again and again, as they’re very much part of being human. Esposito writes a graphic novel that is sure to incite emotion in most any reader.
Sean Von Gorman gives a great look to Pawn Shop with his expressive style and the watercolors provided partially by himself and the rest by Jonathan Moore. There’s a bit of a Matt Kindt feel to the art, but Sean also makes it all his own. He really excels at the detail he puts into the characters, making them quite expressive and giving them easy-to-read body language. The fact that Sean lives in NYC surely factors into the details and familiarity he’s able to add to background details and random buildings, helping to build the authentic feel of the story. Sean also seems fond of adding an Easter Egg or two into the story, inserting the likeness of Joey and even a Neil Gaiman lookalike into the background, along with action figures of various works by both Joey and himself. It adds just a bit more fun to the whole thing.
It’s still early, but Pawn Shop honestly may be the best graphic novel I’ve read so far this year. Pawn Shop made me feel genuine emotions for characters I’d never seen before, which is no easy task. It’s full of relationships: the ones you never want to forget, the ones you can’t get away from quick enough, and those that you dream of, and that speaks to everyone. Everyone’s had a broken heart or had the joy of a new love and that’s what makes this book easy to relate to and such a great read. If you weren’t smart enough to back the Kickstarter, pre-order your copy now.
Art: 9/10
Script: 10/10
Parental Concern: Language and some situations not for the kids.
[…] Stash My Comics gave us a very kind review as well, saying: […]
