The Web Haunt of Ryan K Lindsay

Dark Horse’s small trade release ‘Noir’, A Collection of Crime Comics, is most certainly not for kids. It’s not for those with weak hearts, and it’s probably not going to be the trade that you give to your girlfriend to get her into comics. In truth, it’s not for everybody as it is quite confronting in parts, but if you are a fan of noir, pulp, crime fiction then it most certainly is for you. It can’t not be for you, if you know what I’m sayin’.

If you read Hard Case Crime, Noir is for you.
If you read old Gold Medal paperbacks, Noir is for you.
If you like Criminal comic, Noir is for you.
If you like hard fiction about bad people and worse endings, Noir is for you.

The cover sells it perfectly, there is no confusion. This is black fiction, and its perfect at hiding in the shadows, only coming out to scare you or take your money. I tried to go slow with this book, be romanced by it, but after two tales it had me down the alley on my knees and begging not to end up with a bullet in the back of my head. This book takes a hold and doesn’t really let up. It comes at you in different ways with all sorts of protagonists from young girls to old men. It has textless pieces, and also one text piece with only a couple of images to push it along. The variety is part of the sell, you never see the same trick twice, there’s no way to block what is coming. The only way to prepare you is to go one punch at a time.

Stray Bullets: Open The Goddamn Box by David Lapham
This is a perfect opening. I’d say this story was the most confronting for me. It has a young girl dragged off by two horny boys and put in a box. They’re going to rape her repeatedly and then kill her, everyone knows this. it’s the way the characters talk about this that got to me. It’s so blunt, so direct, so honest. Has one of those endings that makes you clench up a little in so many ways. Great.

The Old Silo by Jeff Lemire
This story is relatively simple and shows the great crime tropes of money in the right or wrong place, heists gone wrong, sad and honest people getting the rough end of the stick in their smoothest places, and a bullet in the stomach. It’s simple but so effective because you like the character and the ending feels like a song closing softly. Very well done.

Mister X: Yacht On The Styx by Dean Motter
This story wasn’t my favourite, as it follows Mister X working with a journalist to look at a murder mystery based around a yacht massacre and dead body found in the foundations of the building that the same person opened. The science fiction elements were actually quite well played, but in the end it just wasn’t what I was after. Good, but not mine.

The Last Hit by Chris Offutt and Kano & Stephano Gaudiano
This is about an old hitman being set up and him figuring it all out. It shows that softness is not a trait you can have in that game. I like the art, I like the character, and I like the ending. This is good, but not quite great.

Fracture by Alex De Campi and Hugo Petrus
This story is just insanely interesting, which is testament to what is achievable with no words. We start with one splash of a girl waiting at the train tracks, then the next page shows how that story could have gone down two different paths, and then the next page splits those narratives, or fractures them, if you will. This story benefits from constantly flipping back and forth to see how things connect or relate. I really liked this one, a lot.

The Albanian by M.K. Perker
This story is interesting, a night cleaner sees his boss offing everyone with a silenced gun, but all of the parts just don’t seem to add up to a great story. This has some character moments, and a good head-shot, but just didn’t reach out to me completely.

Kane: The Card Player by Paul Grist
This is a pretty cool story. A burglar is leaving successive ascending cards at his crime scenes and there is one card missing, the five of diamonds. They wonder where that crime might have been, and they investigate, but sometimes people other than the cops can be better at solving crimes, and I am not talking about caped crusaders. This story has a great pay-off and I didn’t think they spelled it out too much, they gave the reader credit for having a brain. This one is very nice indeed.

Blood On My Hands by Rick Geary
The apathetic, alomst drugged, narrative voice is hilarious and sad in so many ways. A guy suspects his wife of cheating and organises a tail and a hitman. Hilarity ensues, there no other way to sell this story. That’s the premise and it totally works. I could see this being some animated filler animation on MTV. It’s very good, and a slightly slower pace in tone, but not in action.

Tru$tworthy by Ken Lizzi and Joelle Jones
This text piece with just four pictures really grabbed me. A guy is approached by a girl in a bar and takes her home for the night, but she’s just using him because he’s a nice guy. This story could have been called, “Because He’s A Nice Guy”. Our hero knows how he is viewed and he plays on that. He doesn’t completely hold back on us as he narrates, he just makes his way through the story and I was practically cheering him on towards the end. Great little addition and I love that this collection had the balls to include this piece. I almost left it till last because I just wanted to keep going with the comics, but I read it and it was totally worth it. If this review does nothing else I hope it makes people stop and read this piece nice and slowly. Completely worth it.

The New Me by Gary Phillips and Eduardo Barretto
A crazy little crime story with a sci-fi twist, though I saw this one coming a little bit into it. I read an old EC comics story that had a slightly similar premise, though some players were shuffled a bit from this one. A frumpy girl goes to the gym and is trained by the local stud who she knows gives more attention to the hotter clientele. She eventually gets hot, smokin’ in fact, and wins him across but not for any sexual pleasure. Nice ending and the sci-fi element worked for me, though it is a stretch. It seems that noir now does include a bit more technology, but I guess Hammett had people fighting ghosts in his time.

Lady’s Choice by Matthew and Shawn Fillbach
The girl in this story doesn’t do anything but watch. She sits back and lets other guys handle the noir element, she just soaks it in and tells us how it makes her feel. An interesting approach but not the greatest one in the book, though I did appreciate that this was different to everything else and variety is the spice that drives a recipe of comic collections.

Criminal: 21st Century Noir by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips
This is pretty brutally a piece of noir, no mistaking that fact. The Criminal team show us how 21st century technology can be applied into the noir genre when the internet is used to connect a man and a woman. What they do to that man after the connection is made is hilariously hardcore. There’s what is drawn and said on the page and then there’s the gaps that you fill in with your mind. Up there as the best use of a cue-ball mouth gag ever since Pulp Fiction.

The Bad Night by Brian Azzarello and Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba
This story looks at a crime figure hiring some hood’s brother to do a simple job. Rob a man and take his wife’s necklace. It’s all an insurance scam so it should be fine. The brother is sent on his way and warned that they’ll have a kid with them. But how much of a problem could a little kid be in a planned robbery? Now I’m no DC historian, but this story seems to have the shade of the Wayne family all over it, and that’s pretty interesting. It is this final reveal that really sells it all, which is interesting because this is a Dark Horse collection. I loved the art in this, those twins know how to get the pencil and ink on the page and the ending really does work.

I don’t think I can pick one favourite, but up there in a fog of smoke and steam on the streets would be Open The Goddamn Box, Fracture, Tru$tworthy, and Criminal: 21st Century Noir with The Bad Night bringing up the rear.

I would honestly recommend this collection to any crime lover, be they of the comic persuasion or not. It’s bleak, it’s hard, and it’s completely what it sells itself as. Enjoy.

Posted on November 3rd, 2009 by ryan
Filed under: comics