After Tim Truman departed, Tom Sutton took over as artist for 9 issues (minus the anniversary 24th issue, where Truman returned for a short story). Then there's two guests artists, including Shaun McManus, and in issue #31, Tom Mandrake steps in as the regular artist, a role he would maintain for the 25 issues, the most anyone drew of the ongoing series.
Mandrake brings the deep, creeping shadows and faces that look fluid to the work. Most of the time. There are issues in the middle where someone else is doing the inking (Jim McDermott takes a turn or two) and the shadows become a more solid, flat presence. There's none of that sense of them being alive and trying to swallow everything on the page. Mandrake's Cynosure is a bit cleaner, and the streets aren't nearly as crowded. Gaunt seems to be spending more time in places with high walls all around, hemming him in.
I think the big internal conflict up through Truman's run was whether what Gaunt believes about himself is true. Is he really true to his friends? Is his stubborn pushing for the truth, his refusal to let certain people have their way, get away with shit, actually for the best? Is there really any point to anything he's tried to do?
The Trade Wars seemed to answer solidly that he is a person that stands by his friends, because they did the same for him when he needed it. Whether his stopping Dancer and Mayfair from taking over the city was the right move probably depends on what one thinks is best for Cynosure, and how many people it's acceptable to sacrifice to get it.
The time where Mandrake is the artist would seem to reaffirm this, but it also presents more of the downside to his personality. GrimJack being exceedingly stubborn and refusing to give up is great when he's fighting on your behalf and things are bad. Less so when it makes him put you in danger because he's determined to have things a certain way.
The main plot is that Mayfair and Dancer are no longer allies. Instead, each of them are trying to assume power in their own way. Mayfair ropes in BlacJacMac at a time when he's lonely and frustrated, while Dancer finds allies in a lower quarter. Meaning demons. Ostrander knows to give Mandrake the opportunity to draw creepy, crawly monstrous looking things with slime and too many eyes and teeth.
GrimJack finds himself in the middle, trying to piece everything together and get enough people on his side to actually win. But, he wants the win on his terms. Specifically, he wants to be the one who kills Dancer, for a specific reason I will try not to spoil here, and that leads to him making bad decisions. Bad decisions that result in additional casualties on his side.
Ostrander puts Gaunt through some heavy trauma as soon as Mandrake's on-board, and then, gives him a chance at some peace and resolution. It seems to work. A few characters remark he seems less haunted. But what we see over time is that he hasn't abandoned his old ways and gradually, the same flaws resurface. What looked like an unwillingness to abandon a friend, might have just been Gaunt being pissed someone was trying to use him.
He lost a couple of friends during the Trade Wars when he got outmaneuvered. He loses a few more here, but they're more self-inflicted wounds. In the first go-round, those losses sent him into a dark place. He doesn't fall as far this time, but he gets a glimpse of the consequences of his actions, and it's a whole lot worse from his perspective. But we'll get to that next week.
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