A hunter of men who have sinned
If you done been wronged,
Say Her name
Sing this song
Sound the bell's knell
That calls Her from hell...
Ginny rides for you on the wind, my child...
Death rides on the Wind!
- The Ballad of Deathface Ginny
Pretty Deadly was initially a Weird West comic by Kelly Sue DeConnick and Emma Rios. It's a mixture of Spaghetti Western and magical realism.
In the first volume, "The Shrike," published in 2013-4, a blind man, Fox, and a little girl, Sissy, go from town to town, telling the Ballad of Deathface Ginny, the Daughter of Death. But when Sissy steals a binder from a man and Fox burns it, it unleashes Deathface Ginny herself. And she won't go away until she enacts her revenge.
The second volume, "The Bear," published in 2015-6, made a Time Skip into World War I, following the next generation of mortal characters and the same immortals.
The third volume, "The Rat," published in 2019-2020, follows another Time Skip to 1930s Hollywoodland.
The fourth volume, "The Butterfly," will go back to look at the Viking invasion of America and the origin of Big Alice.
The fifth volume, "The Rabbit," will be the final volume and wrap up the entire story of the Reapers and the progeny of Sarah Fields.
Tropes include:
- All There in the Manual: Johnny and Molly's backstory is only in extra material in two issues.
- The Atoner: Fox.
- Blind Seer: Fox is blind and, while not precognitive, he certainly knows a lot more than he's telling.
- Bounty Hunter: Big Alice and her gang, who work for Death.
- Butterfly of Death and Rebirth: Not only is the story being told to a butterfly, but when Big Alice dies, her body turns into a herd of butterflies.
- Constantly Curious: Sissy. In Issue 3, she even refuses to move until Fox tells her the entire story of why they are running.
- Dead All Along: Heavily implied with Mason, Johnny and Molly in Issue 5
- Dem Bones: Aside from Death, the entire story is narrated by Bones Bunny, the skeleton of a rabbit, talking to a butterfly.
- Eldritch Abomination:
- The Reaper of War is much less human than most of the others, and pretty terrifying.
- In volume three, we see the shadows of the Reapers of Hunger, Thirst, and Obsession. They all look terrifying.
- Fantastic Noir: The third volume is based on this, as opposed to the Weird West of the first volume and the Weird Historical War of the second.
- Frame Story: The comic is narrated by Bones Bunny, who is telling the story to a butterfly.
- Greek Chorus: Bones Bunny and the butterfly narrate and comment on the action.
- The Grim Reaper: The central concept of the series. There is a single Death, served by a team of Reapers, all of whom started out as human beings and each of which specializes in death related to a specific concept, including Vengeance, Fear, War, Courage, and others.
- The Gunslinger: Fox is a good shooter, even if he is blind.
- Half-Human Hybrid: Ginny is half-human half-reaper and half-god, according to her.
- Hooker with a Heart of Gold: Lily.
- Magical Realism: Nobody questions a lot of the weird things, like a raven that talks.
- Murder Ballad: What "The Ballad of Deathface Ginny" is. It's about a man who marries a woman, then imprisons her in a stone tower for years, until she calls out for Death. When Death comes, he falls in love with her and they conceive a child...but the woman dies anyway. The child becomes Deathface Ginny, who goes after men who have sinned.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: What Ginny is out for.
- Scenery Porn: Lots of beautiful scenery by Emma Rios.
- Shinigami: The lesser Reapers in this series are basically a re-importation of the modern Japanese fantasy-genre shinigami concept into Western culture.
- Sword and Gun: Both Deathface Ginny and Big Alice wield a gun and a sword.
- We Didn't Start the Führer: A rare example related to World War I rather than World War II — the war was caused by the Reaper of War getting above himself, and ended when Ginny and friends killed him.
- Weird Historical War: The second arc, set in World War I with various Reapers intervening.
- Weird West: As weird as it gets.
