The Many Avenues of Vito Gesualdi

Eight years ago I was sitting on the toilet in a fun-size bathroom of my apartment – so small a hole had to be cut into the door to allow it to close without hitting the toilet bowl – scrolling through Twitter when I came across a video of a college protest. It was titled “Berkeley Protesters Take the Pepsi Challenge”, and it was god damned hilarious. This was my first time enjoying Vito Gesualdi. I laughed, and then I scrolled on while continuing my morning evacuation.

I didn’t see (technically hear) Vito again until 2019, a full two years later when he appeared on one of my favorite podcasts, The Dick Show. I liked his dry wit and ability to self-satire, never seeming to be afraid to pull punches in any direction. It gave him a stellar rapport with Dick Masterson, whom would become his partner in podcast crime. Over time there would be friction (we’ll get to that proclivity) in that relationship, but one can’t deny the synergy of The Biggest Problem in the Universe.

Vito, as an online figure, is divisive. He says what is on his mind no matter how offensive it may come across. He’s prone to Twitter spats (what some would call getting “one-guyed” over and over again) and has the curious mix of both thick and thin skin. He’ll argue endlessly with trolls but also buckle under the pressure of expectation. His perfectionism – or maybe ADHD-disguised procrastination, or maybe even misplaced politeness toward collaborators – has been both his greatest strength and his biggest stumbling block.

That contradiction came to a head in 2023 when he launched his first comic book, SUPERKILLER. Despite the consistent divisive nature, Vito is an endearing guy, causing the parasocial relationship between he and audience he seems to be so terrified of. The campaign exploded, raising six figures with over 2,000 backers. That’s no small feat; most crowdfunded comics scrape by at $10k if they’re lucky enough to fund at all. But this is where the story of SUPERKILLER starts to bleed into something larger than one creator. Vito raised six figures, but was all of that from an intense zeitgeist surrounding his comic book concept? I suspect much of that money stemmed from wanting to fund Vito himself (along with an incredibly generous helping of an Ethan Van Sciver (EVS) promotional livestream).

So here is the caveit in a reformation of the comic book platform: Lots of money is going toward Vito’s, so far, pet project – with fans funding him potentially more for personality than product. And with Vito that might also be a bit of investment in Schadenfreude from people eager to see if he’d flail under the pressure of his own success.

There is a pivot point here where we cannot talk about Vito’s success as if in a vacuum. It’s part of a larger trend of what I would call the Influencer Comic phenomenon.

Soap Box: Activate

In the last few years, comics from online personalities have blown up, often pulling in staggering sums. Eric July’s ISOM famously made over three million dollars (!!!) on its first issue, despite being – and I’ll be blunt – middling at best. Its sales seemed less like a triumph of storytelling and more like fans buying merchandise, no different than a Rippaverse T-shirt or bumper sticker. Numbers became the story, not the comic itself – prompting the, depending on what “side” you’re on, incredibly stupid or incredibly funny “What’s your favorite part of ISOM?” debacle.

This has created a warped perception: influencer comics are hailed as proof the mainstream industry is “dying,” while the actual craft of those mainstream comics continues to outpace most of the crowdfunded darlings creatively, literarily, hell – friggin’ soulfully. It’s a frustrating paradox that has what are seemingly non-comic fans pretending to be die-hard comic fans when really they’re fans of an internet personality showing support through buying something a negligibly more engaging than standard merch.

I’m being a bit too harsh. I love indie comics. I was all about Image comics on their come-up. I grew up reading random Dark Horse comics like Will to Power. Saga is one of my favorite comics currently being published. Most importantly: I am an aspiring indie comic creator! Seeing the often overlooked edges in a space find audiences and carve out their own niche warms my heart to the core. The crowdfunding model is largely what I would consider a net-positive in the space. I love Star Noir by Tony James (whose upcoming Moonshine I am excited for), Outlaw Nights, Fabled Offering, the revitalization of Nexus and Cyberfrog, The Fog Within, The Mythicals, Project: Monsters, Dino King, Blood and Sword, Tap or Die – I’ve enjoyed them all to varying degrees. Even the ones I have backed but haven’t gotten to yet or haven’t released yet (Kit Carter, Wulf and Batsy, Star Circuit, The Legacy of Kain Prequel, and Kor-Drath) all are ones I’m very excited to delve into.

Most of these came to me the same way Superkiller did – not through browsing a comic shop or following a publisher, but through word-of-mouth on Twitter, livestream spats, or general elevation by content creators (some of these I funded because of Vito Gesualdi’s promotion). That’s the double-edged sword of the influencer comic era: it shines a spotlight where traditional publishing rarely looks, but it also turns personality into the product.

And that brings us back to Superkiller. Was it just another influencer-funded curiosity, or does it have the substance to stand as a comic worth reading on its own merits?

It’d be nice if you could do a single review without a long diatribe

So what about the comic itself? After all the delays and expectations, Superkiller finally landed in readers’ hands… well, not technically. So far it has landed in readers’ digital mailboxes. Typically I don’t count production as a part of a review but there is inevitably a need for it in extenuating circumstances.

This comic took ages to release. The comic was announced in 2023 and released (semi-released) a whole two to three years later, with delay after delay. While I don’t personally have a lot of issues with the length it takes one to release, it’s something to keep in mind – especially when creating a story of multiple arcs and wanting to partake in that story in a timely manner.

But that isn’t anything to do with what’s actually in the comic. The first thing to note is that this issue, being a #1, has the unenviable task of needing a lot of setup. This isn’t the explosive deep dive into multiversal bloodshed just yet – it’s establishing tone, character, and the framework of the world. Fortunately, that needle is threaded rather eloquently, juxtaposing enough heart and humor into the exposition-heavy sequences to carry the issue forward for a rewarding read.

The Characters

• Beck serves as the focalizer, our point of view into Superkiller’s storytelling as well as our own introduction to the titular anti-hero. She is established well as a once starry eyed youth who has been dulled by the grind of life to a point of nigh assimilation, but with a spark still burning underneath.
• Sam King is our Superkiller! An inter-dimensional assassin with a forlorn sense of indentured servitude oozing throughout the issue. Despite his quips and jokes, it’s clear he is quietly suffering deep inside.
• Artie is the least defined so far, his voice not quite landing. He veers between aloof and pragmatic and isn’t quite what I had imagined based on his back-of-the-card description on the SUPERKILLER IndieGoGo page, which made me think he was going to be a “relish in all things violent” sort of character, but maybe that’s on me for reading too much into the blood spatter in the image. Despite all this, he delivered one of the funniest moments in the book with a bait-and-switch gag. (Vito, you could have let that one breathe until the next page!)

The Story

The plot is a very “day in the life of SUPERKILLER”, with a wrinkle of Beck’s interference serving as the catalyst to our introduction to the overarching narrative. Despite the rather large amount of exposition, it does its best to do so with enough humor and poking fun at the exposition itself, borderline breaking the third wall, that it never gets to a point of exhaustion.

This universe riffs on a DC-style world, complete with its own Superman, analogue – Meteor Man – revealed as what the exposition describes as a “Nexus Being” – essentially the character whose life essence is the focal point, and thus the only thing keeping that reality together. I promise this was formulated long before Deadpool and Wolverine was conceptualized despite the eerie similarity in concept (I’m sure Vito has the receipts to prove it).

By and large this is a comedy-based comic book, and the humor shines bright when it leans into the clever riffs on superhero tropes, like the kinky kryptonite bit – self-inflicting weakness to make intimacy hurt the way it “should”. That’s the kind of Brody-from-Mallrats style humor I eat up: shining a light on the unsaid corners of comic lore. It’s irreverent and sometimes juvenile, but it hits the right notes for the tone being set. And it’s not just the insider jabs at comic-mediums that make this comic funny. The 9/11 bank heist joke, the gun background-check complete with Vito cameo, or the strange not-sure-where-from diner owner all bring a sense of levity to an otherwise technically-cosmic and world-ending storyline.

The Verdict

As a first issue, it succeeds at what it needs to, setup, while introducing fun players, building a vibe, and sprinkling jokes that show Vito’s comedic sensibilities translating onto the page. It’s not flawless – the exposition can feel wordy at times, Artie needs a bit of refinement, some of the art is inconsistent especially revolving around Beck (I feel there may have been too many cooks in the kitchen when it comes to editors’ notes), and the delays are a problem that absolutely need to be addressed with subsequent releases.

This first issue leaves me with one important quality, a yearning for what happens next. That’s more than I can say for many crowdfunded, and even mainstream, projects. So many comics sputter after a splashy debut, so here is to hoping Vito nails the next iteration as well! I’ll be funding the next one, but there is a caveat: I will not be waiting another 2-3 years for an issue #2. If that occurs, I will need to consider this a dead franchise and won’t be able to bring myself to fund a third. Lessons shall be learned! Until then, SUPERKILLER has earned my semi-cautious optimism!