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Bilyeu, Chad & de Wit, Juliette – The Re-Up #3
Website (Chad)
Website (Juliette)
This series is moving right along, and this time around we start to see Chad’s plan for becoming/staying a successful pot dealer in the aughts. If you missed the first two comics in this series and have just started reading the reviews now, check back with those, that’ll tell you the story so far. Obviously, YOU know all that, I’m just talking to that one guy who doesn’t get it. Anyway, we see how Chad approaches people, how he knows who to ask, and how people know to ask him (generally because he assumes that he usually smells like pot). We see an eclectic range of customers, proving once again an ongoing theory of mine: the people who are smoking pot are often not the stereotypical ones that you might suspect. We also see what sure looks the beginning of a foolproof plan of where he should set up shop for his pot handoffs, after Chad learns that police have to get permission from the university to show up. Chad also peppers the story with overheard conversations from his time on campus and, as he makes clear in his afterward, these are all actual conversations, as he regularly carries around a notepad to remember conversations verbatim. The rich kids at Georgetown are often just as obnoxious and clueless as you might think, which all leads inevitably and delightfully to the conclusion: he’s going to take these kids for all they’re worth. Spoiler, sort of, but it’s not like that’s the end of the whole story, so only a baby spoiler, really. Speaking of that afterward, it’s another welcome piece of insight into the process, what he hopes comes from it, and it’ll ideally be a spot for letters in the future. So yeah, this series is thoroughly on track now, if anybody had any doubts. I thought it hit the ground running and has stayed solid throughout. He does offer a package deal for the first few comics (I know I linked to it in one of this reviews), or you can buy them singly through Birdcage Bottom Books. $9
Bilyeu, Chad & de Wit, Juliette – The Re-Up #2
Note: the review for the last issue included a link to make an offer on all of the available issues (up to #4 now). This time around I’m linking to a single issue through what looks like the only website that offers them singly. I’m a full service website over here! Chad spent a lot of time in the last issue detailing his life at the time, his hesitancy about getting into selling weed, and fleshing out the stories of several people involved in the business. This time around he takes a step back to show, in detail, a process that’s not at all sexy or dramatic and is left out of pretty much all depictions of drug dealing in movies or tv: waiting around for your supplier to show up. Chad is just getting started, so he’s given the address of a (fairly sleazy) hotel and told to wait there for the supplier to show up. He’s waiting with several other people for their re-ups, and three hours is plenty long enough for some awkward and/or posturing conversations to pop up. From there we get taken along for the ride as Chad meets the man, has the details explained to him, is offered several helpful suggestions to minimize risk and told what to do if all of that fails. It’s a confident comic, if that makes any sense. A couple of lesser talents could lose an audience to slow things down this much in the second issue, but it’s clearly a necessary piece of the story and, like I said, it’s usually glossed over in any fictional accounts. If this is a world that you’re at all curious about, this is a damned solid comic to check out. $10
Bilyeu, Chad & de Wit, Juliette – The Re-Up #1
Note: the link in the title goes to a site where you can offer a fair price for all three issues that are currently available. If you’re looking for single issues Birdcage Bottom Books has them. Onward! I had a really great conversation with Chad at CXC this year (2023, future people), which is what pushed me to get all three issues that he had available rather than sticking with the usual dipping my toe in with one issue. Based on this first one, I’m glad that I did. This is the story of Chad’s life roughly from 2004-2008, or at least the portion of his life that you might have guessed from that title: his time dealing pot. It was a very different world for such things back then, as he so eloquently describes in his afterward, among other things. It’s odd to start a review with the afterward, but between that and the ongoing narration during the comic it’s obvious that Chad is a hell of a writer. This issue starts off with the moment that Chad decides to take over the business, but wait, we don’t know anything about him yet! Not to worry, because he launches into a flashback from there, detailing his time working A/V for Georgetown University (including a hilarious example of the type of work he did, which I would have thought ridiculous if I hadn’t seen that exact same scenario in a college class of mine ages ago) before a chance meeting with a guy smoking pot on campus. He had no interest in ratting this guy out, but the weed smell was so strong that he felt compelled to warn the guy about other people possibly smelling it. A friendship was born from this, and Chad gradually discovers that his new friend wasn’t a casual pot smoker but was instead a big time dealer in the area. Chad helped this guy out with a connection when everything had dried up, this bigger time connection also became friends with the dealer (he was already pals with Chad), and time moved along, as it does. Chad was reluctant to take over the business when his friend left town, but it’s probably not a spoiler to reveal that he got there eventually, what with that being the premise of the comic and all. Chad mentioned that they’re sticking to a strict publishing schedule (that I can’t remember precisely now, of course), and the plan is to collect all of this into a graphic novel when it’s all said and done. I’d call that an excellent idea, as I’m very intrigued to see where it all goes from here. So in other words, yes, I’d recommend that you give this a shot. Pot smokers should know/remind themselves what things were like back then, and uptight squares should know the reality of dealing instead of their cartoon villain version of it. $10
