Exclusive Black Mask preview: Children become bank robbers in 4 Kids Walk Into A Bank

Every parent has secrets they don’t want to tell their kids, and in Black Mask’s new miniseries, 4 Kids Walk Into A Bank, by writer Matthew Rosenberg and artist Tyler Boss, Paige Turner’s father is up to some fishy business with four aggressive thugs that don’t mind violently interrupting his daughter’s play dates. Over the course of the book’s first issue, Paige and her friends start to shift away from their tabletop RPG and into the more dangerous arena of real-world crime as they investigate what those four men are up to, offering a twist on the typical bank robbery narrative by incorporating four pre-teens in the mix.

This extended preview of 4 Kids Walk Into A Bank #1 (available in print and digitally on April 27) introduces readers to this world and cast with an exciting fantasy sequence showing the children as their RPG characters, beginning the story with a blend of drama and humor as the kids take on a dragon before their bickering tears the game apart. Rosenberg’s script quickly establishes the individual kids’ personalities while Boss renders the fantasy world with bold visuals reminiscent of artists like David Aja and Michael Walsh, and the contrast of the grounded dialogue with the spectacular visuals makes for a very engaging opening.

The transition out of the game is very smooth, and the creative team does great work setting a different tone when the group returns to reality, with Boss using a muted palette and tighter layouts to make everything plainer, but also more personal as character emotions become the priority. The final pages of this preview turn up the tension as the children encounter their future enemies for the first time, setting them on a path that will eventually lead to four kids walking into a bank and taking criminal matters into their own hands.