So many crime comics, so little time. Vertigo alone must publishes half a dozen pulp crime monthlies, and that doesn’t even include the Vertigo Crime imprint. I already reviewed one of the Vertigo Crime graphic novels here, so I’ll limit this post to monthly titles.
Reviews
Choker #1
Writer: Ben McCool (that can’t possibly be his real name)
Artist: Ben Templesmith
Publisher: Image Comics
Crime and horror are an unlikely pairing. They may share an appreciation for violence and brooding scenery, but the primary appeal of the genres are at odds. Crime stories are generally empowerment fantasies, whether the focus is on the criminal (empowerment against authority) or the detective (empowerment in service to authority). Horror is more about powerlessness, and the thrills and scares that come from being vicariously helpless. These are two genres that just don’t mix well. (Now, some of you will argue, “What about Seven? That had detectives and it was scary up until the moment the killer was revealed to be Kevin Spacey.” But Seven wasn’t really a crime story, because the detective scenes with Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman were not critical to the film’s appeal. They just filled in time between the big gross-out moments). All of this is a roundabout way of explaining why Choker is not a good comic.
Set in the future, the plot follows a lowly private detective named Johnny Jackson. Formerly a cop, he’s given an opportunity to get his old job back if he can capture a drug dealer. About as basic a crime plot as they come, but the story quickly veers towards horror because the drug in question transforms its users into something akin to vampires.
The horror factor is also emphasized by the artwork. Ben Templesmith is best known for his work on several popular horror comics, particularly 30 Days of Night. His art in Choker looks very similar: distorted bodies, the heavy use of black, grimy backgrounds. Though in Choker, he also uses lurid red and orange coloring to highlight the corruption and decadence of the future.
It looks very cool, but the flashy art can’t hide the fact that the comic doesn’t function well as either horror or crime. The horror aspect is undermined by the concepts inherent in a crime story. For example, by focusing the plot on the hard-boiled detective, McCool deflates any anxiety that the reader might have, because we all know that the chain-smoking tough guy isn’t going to die. At the same time, the crime story is diminished by the comic’s awkward attempts at being scary. The vampires in the story are meant to be creepy, but they’re really just super-powered junkies. It’s impossible to take the central conflict seriously. The book has a lot of ideas, but they remain incoherent and poorly executed.
Criminal – The Sinners #1
Writer: Ed Brubaker
Artist: Sean Phillips
Colorist: Val Staples
Publisher: Icon (Marvel)
Criminal is one of the least innovative comics being produced by any mainstream publisher. Ed Brubaker writes stereotypical crime stories: square-jawed protagonists, femme fatales, and endless monologues. Sean Phillips and Val Staples illustrate the comic in the most predictable manner possible: dark colors, thick black lines, a general impression of an overbearing world. We’ve seen this all before.
The plot of this issue is also familiar. Tracy Lawless (a character from an earlier story arc) is stuck working as a hitman for a mob kingpin. He’s offered a chance to walk away, but only if he can figure out who’s murdering the mobster’s lieutenants. It’s a typical anti-hero plot, with the obligatory sub-plot involving the mobster’s sexy wife.
Brubaker and company aren’t doing anything new or original – and that’s okay. So what if they don’t re-invent the wheel? Wheels already do exactly what they’re supposed to do. I suppose I should laud innovation, but to be perfectly honest I’m only interested in innovation when it produces a great story. If creators tell a great story by inventing an entirely new genre of entertainment, then I’m happy. If creators tell a great story by relying on familiar tropes from a well-worn genre, then I’m happy.
Brubaker may not be an innovator, but he’s a reliable craftsman. The characters are all archetypes, but they’re enjoyable archetypes that fit perfectly into the world that Brubaker and Phillips have created. The plot is predictable, but it plods along with the implicit assurance that the payoff will be worth the wait. And while Phillips isn’t a daring artist, his pencils and inks effectively conveys both story and tone.
Criminal is nothing more and nothing less than the work of professionals who are doing exactly what they want to do.
Scalped #36
Writer: Jason Aaron
Artist: Davide Furno
Colorist: Giulia Brusco
Publisher: Vertigo (DC)
I’m not a regular reader of Scalped, but from what I’ve seen of the series I’m pretty sure it’s about Native American gangsters who run a casino. I think I read a review that described it as Sorpranos on an Indian reservation (hopefully without the pretentious dream sequences), or maybe it was Goodfellas on a reservation. But since it involves a casino, perhaps it should be Casino on a reservation. Scalped readers need to help me out here. What is the proper analogy? And is there an Indian Joe Pesci?
The first thing that came to mind as I read this issue: Scalped is a remarkably exploitative comic. A team of white creators produced a story about violent, lusty ethnic minorities who kill and fuck each other for the amusement of the predominantly white audience. And they even throw throw in a nod to Indian spirituality (one character actually narrates from beyond the grave). I suppose I should find all this offensive, but I’m actually impressed that Vertigo published a comic about Indians that didn’t involve Jonah Hex shooting them.
And once you get past the Indian-sploitation, it isn’t half bad. It has all the elements readers would expect from a gangster comic: sleazy casino owners, brutal violence, macho men. And there are a few things readers wouldn’t expect, such as the fact that the macho men enjoy gay sex.
The art is okay, in the way that art in Vertigo comics is always “kind of,” “sort of” okay. Davide Furno deserves some small praise for his character design, because at least Native Americans don’t look like white people with tans. But the art isn’t memorable in any way, which is the harshest thing I can say about it.
So this is a comic about gay, Native American gangsters, and (lackluster art aside) it truly is the best damn comic about gay, Native American gangsters that I’ve ever read.
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State of the Genre: For a genre that was once almost completely absorbed by superheroes, crime has made a massive comeback. In itself, the success of the crime genre is hardly surprising. Stories of crooks and heists and square-jawed detectives have remained popular in every other media for decades. What is surprising is just how long it took for crime to recover as a prominent genre of American comics. Blame Wertham, the Comics Code, superhero fanboys, etc., etc.
But over the last couple decades the comics market has evolved to the point where it can sustain a significant number of crime comics. And given the size of the genre, it deserves an extra post, which is why I’ll be reviewing Peter Milligan’s Bronx Kill next week.
Good lord — Peter Milligan. I had no idea he was still kicking about.
Scalped — what is the audience, do you have a sense? Are they trying for a boys’ love manga audience thing? Or does its audience really seem to be the same as for most mainstream comics (i.e., mostly guys?) Either way, it’s pretty interesting to see DC marketing an actual gay title….
What I’ve read of Criminal suggests that it’s actually worse than a lot of police procedurals and crime dramas on TV (The Wire, The Shield, The Sopranos or even Damages, which is a kind of crime drama etc.). Why pay for something which is thoroughly mediocre when you can get a better alternative for “free”? However, I’m not entirely surprised that the series gets so much praise from the critical blogosphere where everything seems to be “graded” on a very indulgent curve.
As for gay characters/comics, if Archie can do it…I don’t know if there’s any kissing in that one though.
It’s a little different to have a random gay token than it is to build your series around gay male romance, though. Everybody does the first; there isn’t a whole lot of the second anywhere in American culture.
It’s not totally unheard of — Brokeback Mountain and Torchwood are counter examples, I suppose. But DC and mainstream comics is usually miles behind the curve in that sort of thing, rather than almost ahead of it.
Also — you don’t have to pay for comics anymore than you have to pay for anything else if you don’t want to.
You came up with Torchwood before Queer as Folk? Was that for my benefit?
(I actually have mixed feelings about Torchwood, particularly Jack/Ianto. It seemed a little unnecessarily melodramtic, compared to the oh-so-normative Gwen/Rhys business.)
I haven’t seen Queer as Folk. I was a qualified fan of Torchwood, though. Even wrote about it for the Reade — but it seems to have disappeared from their archive. Maybe I’ll repost it here in the next couple of days….
“Qualified fan” fits my experience of Torchwood too. I enjoyed it at the time. I don’t want to watch any of the episodes again.
I haven’t seen Queer as Folk either, but it’s just very much a “series built around gay male romance.” It’s also, like Torchwood, written by Russell T. Davies.
(And you should definitely post your Torchwood thing.)
Suat- Sopranos started off as a great show, but it got increasingly directionless and self-indulgent as the seasons wore on (same problem with The Shield). And just to be nit-picky, neither Sopranos or the Wire were truly free (at least in the U.S.). You have to pay extra for premium cable channels like HBO. Or you can just steal everything like Noah.
So I did a bit more research into “Scalped,” and it’s clear that the main character is straight. The comic I reviewed focuses on a supporting character named Shunka. So the audience probably is the same as for most Vertigo comics (i.e., straight white males). I’ll still give Jason Aaron credit for writing a comic about gay, Native American gangsters, but, sadly, it’s only a side story in his comic about straight, Native American gangsters.
Noah: I figured from Richard’s review (and my general perception of DC/Vertigo) that “Scalped” wasn’t a gay-centric vision of Native American gangsters; more like what occurs in “Six Feet Under” or “The Shield” where just one of the main protagonists is gay.
Anyway, Archie having a token gay character is probably more significant considering its target audience and one time Christian franchisees. Of course, if you hate tokenism…
Richard: Quite correct about “The Shield” and “The Wire”. Get them on cable where I live as well though some of the cable stuff can be found on terrestrial television (where you pay via licensing fee). Really cheap to rent on DVD as well.
I don’t necessarily hate tokenism in all manifestations — I mean, it’s not ideal obviously, but there are worse option. The point was just that I thought tokenism was a little different than what I thought was going on with Scalped.
Noah:
I don’t know that I would describe all crime fiction as empowerment fantasies. I wouldn’t call Cain’s Double Indemnity or The Postman Always Rings Twice empowerment fantasies. Jim Thompson novels like The Grifters and After Dark, My Sweet don’t fit that description either. They (and the films based on them) are all pretty despairing. The same can be said of a lot of Law & Order episodes as well.
Yeah; femme fatale noir is fairly masochistic, I’d think (powerful woman crushing lameass man beneath her heel.)
Detective fiction is more like superhero stuff in being hero driven, and therefore more or less about empowerment. Choker sounds like its more detective than noir.
Are there any noir/horror mixes? It seems like you could almost make that work….
Oh, there’s Angel Heart. That’s actually a fantastic and deeply smart movie. The blend of horror and noir there is kind of genius.
I am inclined to disagree that crime fiction is empowerment fantasy for the simple reason that rarely are the “good guys” good enough at what they do and far enough ahead of the game that they don’t have to worry (more often, they’re behind the 8-ball and barely scraping by) and it doesn’t really work as anti-authoritarian power fantasy, either because the “bad guys” are always down on their luck and just a degree or two away from being killed.
Hell, the next comic you mention (Brubaker’s masterful CRIMINAL) proves it. The characters in hardboiled and noir fiction are almost without exception complete and utter losers and that’s their appeal. If you wanted to aruge that superheroes are empowerment fantasy and childish empowerment fantasy at that, you’d be completely justified. Crime fiction? The characters are lucky to make it to the end of the issue without being murdered where they stand.
Oh, and Robert — you do know the article is by Richard Cook, right? Don’t want to take credit where it’s not due!
Serves me right for reading and commenting just before I go to bed. Richard–please see above. My apologies to both you and Noah for getting you mixed up.
D. Peace- the hard times of crime fiction protagonists doesn’t actually disprove my point about empowerment fantasy. The fact that the world is out to get them but they continue to do “what a man has to do” is really the core of the appeal. Admittedly, there’s an element of masochism as well, but crime fiction appeals to men for many of the same reasons that war and adventure stories do.
Noah- how would you define the difference between crime fiction and noir? To me, they seem to be two concepts that generally overlap.
I think crime fiction can include detective stories, right? Agatha Christie might be thought of as crime fiction, but it’s not noir.
Or perhaps I’m mixing terms up….
crime (“detective”) fiction and noir overlap to a large extent. you could find examples of both “empowerment” and masochism in both, often in the same work (the kiss me deadly movie comes to mind as a good example of both: the detective is tough as nails, alpha male type, solves the crime, but in the process gets beaten, shot, tied up and exposed to probably-leathal dose of radiation. the maltese falcon has elements of both but for me in the end is happy).
there are other distinctions that matter too. like does the world at large have intent to harm our hero or is it just bad guys. some times this distinction can be murky or it could be both but for example in the recent michael clayton it seems almost as if fate itself is in charge rather than any of the characters as a series of unlikely (and one almost supernatural) coincidences gum up the works for both the quasi-detective hero and the guys who are plotting against him. that one has a somewhat happy ending though so you could go either way (empowerment or masochism).
for every ninth gate there’s an angel heart out there.
noir is kind of an easy term to mix up since it refers both to stuff that is detective/(sometimes mystery though i don’t know if i’d count christie any more than i’d count sherlock holmes) and can be sometimes supernatural.. but then also gets misapplied to anything with a “dark” aesthetic and extreme camera angles, like the night of the hunter, which is a fairy tale.
can you really say “generally they are about empowerment”?
sometimes the hero’s in control, sometimes the bad guys are, sometimes the devil is in control and we’re all just along for the ride.
i don’t think noir lends itself to such easy generalization as say, “western” does.
or look at it another way. take the ninth gate and angel heart, as i mentioned up above. they’re both about a detective vs. the devil, with very different outcomes for the two detectives. empowerment vs. damnation. that’s a meaningful distinction but just as, if not more meaningful is that it’s the nature of the devil that causes those outcomes (in one of them he’s a nice devil and in the other a mean one), and in both cases the detectives are just dupes, more or less.
i just realized maybe i’m getting ahead of myself, since those might not count as “crime” fiction, per se. but they are certainly detective fiction of a certain type, with elements of horror. michael clayton and kiss me deadly are more “straight” examples of “crime solving” but where the characters are still to a large extent dupes of fate (if not exactly religious fate).
“Now, some of you will argue, “What about Seven? That had detectives and it was scary up until the moment the killer was revealed to be Kevin Spacey.” But Seven wasn’t really a crime story, because the detective scenes with Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman were not critical to the film’s appeal. They just filled in time between the big gross-out moments”
Is this accurate? I haven’t seen Se7en in over 10 years. What sticks with me more than the grizzly murders is the twist ending where it turns out the detectives have been at the mercy of the killer the whole time. It seems like a pretty important aspect of that movie that there’s someone trying to solve the mystery. Maybe you could look at it as a whole important subgenre of horror where the victims aren’t trying to get away or aren’t *just* victims but serve other roles as well. Some Dario Argento films (Deep Red) seem to blend the two. Also more modern Serial Killer films (like Se7en) where the killer seems to have supernatural intelligence to plot murders and leave clues and is fixated on the hero/detective. That’s not just straight horror in the same sense as Jason.
Has anyone seen Phantasm? I’ve always thought it was kind of like a Hardy Boys mystery where everything goes wrong.
one more thought (sorry for the scattered nature of these, but i’m at work so it’s not like i can just sit down and spend all day writing an essay):
it may be useful to think of detective as a genre but as a device (or cluster of devices) that can be plugged into various genres. There are detectives in sci fi, horror, conspiracy-thrillers, mystery, con movies, crime films. can anyone think of any detective-westerns?
ave- thanks for taking the time to comment. I’ll try and respond to all your points later, when I’m not at work.
“Also more modern Serial Killer films (like Se7en) where the killer seems to have supernatural intelligence to plot murders and leave clues and is fixated on the hero/detective.”
Serial killer films are difficult to talk about collectively because they’re often quite different from each other. Some movies like “The Bone Collector” tend to focus more on the detectives, and these can probably be considered crime stories.
But then there are films like “Saw,” which have detectives investigating stuff, but we all know the real attraction isn’t the crime-solving. It’s torture porn, a subset of horror, and the focus is on the victims and the killer.
And I agree that detectives can be separated from “detective” fiction. I think a lot of horror movies use detectives because they have easily explained motivations, they advance the plot through their investigation, and they serve as an obvious foil to the killer.
Adding to all this confusion is the pseudo-genre called thrillers. They’re probably closer to horror than to what I would consider crime (or “detective”) fiction, but they often have the trappings of detective stories.
well henry portrait of a serial killer is clearly very different than the bone collector, but what i was talking about was a certain subset of serial killer movies that use the device of a detective who the killer (usually a nietzchean super-genius rather than, you know, a fucked up real person) toys with, leaving elaborate clues, maybe has witty tete-a-tetes with, and so on. i vaguely remember bone collector being a typical example but hardly anything else about it. was that the one with the avuncular black actor in a wheel chair who coaches the young white woman in how to catch serial killers?
where do you draw the line between “detective movie” and “torture porn”? what is the key aspect? that the good guy wins (get’s empowered)? that he survives? that the crimes are especially ugly? that it doesn’t get a sequel?
as to this:
“I think a lot of horror movies use detectives because they have easily explained motivations, they advance the plot through their investigation, and they serve as an obvious foil to the killer.”
i think that’s accurate. does that affect your assessment that horror and detectives are incompatible?
another possible reason for including detectives is that it’s a role that lies half way between the viewer and the story. ie he interacts with the the other characters but he can also be more detached and voyeuristic, while also often being kept in the dark about lots of plot points. probably why so many “detectives” are actually just witnesses who happen to get curious. part of the point is that this role is slippery. the detective can get caught and tortured and even killed, and often does. in that way i think the detective may sometimes be a rather ideal victim for horror, more-so than lascivious babes who we know are just waiting to be bumped on the head and kidnapped.
examples of “detectives” (meaning crime-solvers, not necessarily cops or p.i.’s) who are “just witnesses who happen to get curious”:
deep red.
many, many de palma films.
does rear window count?
sorry, i can’t seem to stop thinking of more examples. here’s another one: detectives who alter or make up a lot of what we see:
insomnia (the original scandinavian one, i’m pretty sure the remake was less ambiguous)
singapore sling
the pledge
in the minus man the killer is the narrator and he just imagines the detectives who are after him.
When I talk about “detective” fiction, I’m mostly referring to stories about hard-boiled detectives who solve problems the “two-fisted” way. In other words, it’s old school pulp crime. So the primary appeal is very similar to other pulp genres: rugged masculinity, sexy women, violence, etc.
Torture porn may have detectives as characters, but the primary appeal is the anticipation (both fearful and titilating) of brutal violence inflicted on a helpless victim.
Admittedly, I’m defining these genres very narrowly, but I find that useful for discussion purposes.
Okay, I’m surprised ave never mentioned this, but the best counterexample to my argument is “Silence of the Lambs.” It definitely functions as horror (or at least a thriller), but the core story is basically detective fiction featuring Jody Foster as a new FBI agent.
But I wonder if the reason this movie successfully blends genres is because it stars a woman. Including a female lead overturns many of the implicit “rules” about how detective stories are supposed to function. It’s much more acceptable (to mainstream audiences) for that detective to show vulnerability and fear when the detective is female. In other words, she can be the “Final Girl” of the horror story.
I think you’re right about the importance of having a female detective for Silence of the Lambs — though still I wonder how successful that film is overall. I guess other folks liked it….
oo, i thought of silence of the lambs as one of those typical serial-killer vs. detective movies, but hadn’t really thought about the detective’s gender in that — good point.
i’m not sure, actually, if i’ve evern seen that movie all the way through.
i asked my girlfriend what she thought about detectives and horror movies last night and for the record she agreed with you, richard. “when you blend them you get scooby doo”.
Scalped has different regular artist that is much better and more distinctive. You can practically feel the dust on your fingers while reading it. Some of the fill in artists are better than others.
Scalped has an ensemble cast. It’s not just tokenism because each character, no matter how unimportant they might seem, gets their own time in the spotlight.
I don’t buy the charges of racism against Scalped. Every character acts morally dubious no matter what their ethnicity is. The only explicit good person a Native American.
For me, the most memorable blending of noir and horror came from producer/writer Val Lewton. The most famous is probably Cat People; then there’s the sequel, The Curse of the Cat People (which manages to also be a family drama and a children’s fantasy, as well). And The Leopard Man is fantastic Southwestern horror-noir.
And touches of noir — both in terms of theme and filmmaking style — can be found in all nine of the Lewton horror-thrillers… But the greatest example is the magnificently eerie The Seventh Victim.
Matthew
Matthewwave- Thanks for the recommendations. I’ll put Cat People on my Netflix list.