Crime Comics for One and All (Except Cozy Fans, regrettably)!

Though Vertigo Crime has thus far been painfully under-fucking-whelming, the crime genre is still brilliantly represented in comics today. I’ve said it before, and I’ll definitely say it again: Scalped by Jason Aaron and R.M. Guera is the best thing in crime today – and I’m talking movies, books, and Tee-fucking-Vee – hands down. Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips’s Criminal series seems to pump out stories that would make kick-ass noir films if anybody had the balls to produce them. And then there’s the Marvel Noir series! Okay, so not really with that last one.

But if you’re all caught up with Scalped and Criminal, indulge the Nerd while he slams some more awesome down on your TBR pile. In fact, I’ve got three, count ‘em three, fucking recs for you that cover three different subgenres of crime fiction. Yeah, it’s a tall order, but I’ll gladly be your server. The special tonight is the catfish po’ boy, the soup is fucking navy bean.

First up we’ve got writer Greg Rucka and artist Matthew Southworth’s first issue of Stumptown, a promising hard-boiled PI series. It’s the story of Dex, a good PI with a bad gambling habit. The Indian casino she frequents in the Pacific Northwest is calling in her massive tab. Naturally, she’s dead-fucking-broke, and this tribe does not fuck around. Thankfully, she’s offered a way out – find the casino owner’s wayward granddaughter, and the debt is cleared. Soon enough, Dex is being asked by a shady millionaire to track down the girl for him at twice her price, and some rednecks kidnap and attempt to murder her.

It’s a good intro to what looks like a solid series. Dex is funny and bitter but with a heart of gold, because, you know, she looks after her mentally challenged kid brother (maybe the brother will pay off eventually, but I don’t need shit like that to make me like flawed characters, but that’s just me, I suppose). As Rucka readers could probably guess, she’s also a foxy lesbian. The art is solid and pulpy, and the pace is zippy. It seems fairly traditional thus far but, that’s fine with the Nerd. I mean, how many decent PI series are in comics right now – hold your comment, let me finish – how many are straight-forward PI series without lame-ass superhero shit thrown in? That’s what I thought. Stumptown will most definitely get you your hard-boiled private eye fix via comics, pain-free.

Back to Brooklyn, the undeniably badass offering from writer Garth Ennis and artist Mihailo Vukelic, story by Ennis and Jimmy Palmiotti. This five-issue trade paperback collection from Image Comics is the story of mobster Bob Saetta’s war on his own brother, Brooklyn mob kingpin Paulie Saetta. The book opens with Bob cutting a deal with the cops to bring down Paulie in one weekend before turning himself in. Apparently Paulie is holding Bob’s wife and son hostage, and action must be taken quickly. The mystery of why Bob is turning rat is saved for the kick-ass finale, but before then we’ve got Bob killing some motherfuckers with a shotgun and all kinds of other down-and-dirty violence.

The artwork in Back to Brooklyn is unlike anything you’ve ever seen, almost photo realism but with something just a little off in every frame to make it appear subtly surreal. The violence pops off the page, and every character is meticulously drawn, the environments a strange mixture of haziness and clarity. Ennis’s dialogue has never been more gleefully profane (which is fucking saying something), and his Americanese is nearly flawless for once. And while the story may seem rather familiar at first, you will be shocked by how absolutely bug-fuck-pulpy-disgusting-awesome it eventually becomes. It is clear that Palmiotti and Ennis were having a blast when they sketched out this story, taking things from hard-boiled to gleefully over-cooked to completely fucking charred.

Finally, for fans of off-beat crime (I refuse to say “literary crime” or any other “transcending the genre” bullshit buzzwords), I give you Jacques Tardi’s no-shit brilliant adaptation of Jean-Patrick Manchette’s West Coast Blues. When everyman George Gerfaut gives an injured car accident victim a ride to the hospital one evening, he soon finds himself the target of some nasty motherfuckers. But what starts out as something straight out of a Hitchcock classic like North by Northwest soon escalates into something more savage, more profound, and utterly wonderful (yeah, it can’t get any more vague, but trust me, you don’t want anything spoiled, dear reader).

The art by Tardi is this strange black-and-white craziness that is initially off-putting, then clearly perfect for the story. Like much of the book, there is simply nothing to compare it to. And once again, the Nerd apologizes for the vagueness, but West Coast Blues is extremely hard to pin down. It succeeds brilliantly in good old-fashioned crime thrills, for sure. The violence is brutal, the story exciting and surprising, and the characters are brilliantly rendered. But then there’s that extra little layer, those subtle themes, those strange details, the lyrical narration passages – let’s just stop and cut to the fucking chase: you should just pick this shit up and be floored. This is about as good as comics get, dear readers.

So I’m like fucking Santa Claus today (UK readers, you may know him as Father Christmas) – I’ve got something for the whole crime-loving family. Stumptown for the Chandler-style PI folks; Back to Brooklyn for the nasty noir junkies; and West Coast Blues for the crime connoisseurs. In other words, you can’t fucking lose at the comics shop right now, crime fans. But in thanks for the Nerd’s selfless gift-giving (if totally correct opinions on shit could be considered gifts…), please avoid cookies and fucking milk. A case of Bud and a pack of smokes will most definitely fucking suffice.

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