Released early in 2014, Down, Set, Fight! is the story of former football player Chuck Fairlane, who was banned from the game for punching out a mascot who chose to taunt him at the wrong moment. Settled into life as a high school football coach, Chuck gets attacked by a mascot one day. It turns out there's been a string of these attacks on famous athletes, and that there's a lot of betting on them going on. Which means someone's orchestrating it, and Chuck has a good idea who.
I think this whole thing was based around the idea of athletes fighting mascots, which is not entirely unheard of here in the States. I think Brook and Robin Lopez in the NBA have (mock)terrorized mascots for years. Chuck's also dealing with a manipulative, abusive creep of a father. He hates the guy, but his father consistently finds ways to make sure that Chuck winning helps him win, too. Which is why he originally punched out the mascot. His dad just had to let him know that he'd goaded Chuck into winning a game he was ready to give up on. That's an ugly feeling, when you can't even enjoy your successes because the worst person possible also benefited.
There's a high school football player Chuck tries to encourage in good ways, and an FBI agent who seems to be there for exposition and when the plot requires a way for Chuck to avoid legal repercussions for the stuff he does. But really, this is Chuck and his dad's story.
Kowalchuk's art has a heavy line, and he soften it with his color work, or make it heavier when necessary. Sometimes I see a bit of Keith Giffen in his characters' faces (though this is definitely not a comic that goes in for 9-panel grids), other times a bit of Rich Burchett. The fights have an old-school superhero style to them. Heavy impacts, big feats of strength (I almost went with the page of Chuck suplexing one of those Chinese New Year dragons full of people) but the violence isn't graphic or anything. A bear mascot slashes Chuck across the chest, but there's no blood. That kind of thing.
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