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Mars Will Send No More

~ Comic books, art, poetry, and other obsessions

Mars Will Send No More

Tag Archives: crime

Indie Box: Darwyn Cooke’s Parker Adaptations

21 Monday Feb 2022

Posted by Mars Will Send No More in crime

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

book review, crime, darwyn cooke, donald westlake, first issue, graphic novel, indie box, Indie Comics, parker, richard stark, the hunter

Reading The Hunter sheds light on how much Donald Westlake’s series of Parker novels influenced the ultra-gritty Sin City series by Frank Miller. It seems fair to say that the style of Sin City also influenced Darwyn Cooke’s adaptation of its predecessor, bringing it all full-circle.

For example, Cooke sometimes fills a page with a single image and a column of narration on the side, something Miller often did, especially in the first Sin City volume The Hard Goodbye, and which John Byrne later parodied in She-Hulk.

Cooke also shows a fondness for the BAM sound effect rendered in blocky lettering when a pistol fires.

It’s a classic sound that brings to mind Miller’s iconic pages from the sixth issue of The Hard Goodbye where the sound effect becomes the frames for the action, and it reminds us that Westlake’s Parker and Miller’s Marv are cut from the same cloth.

If you crave stories with empowered women, then Parker isn’t for you. Parker’s world is a man’s world. Women are trotted onstage mostly for sex and betrayal. In Cooke’s four volumes, the woman with the most agency and initiative is Alma in The Outfit, since she sets up the heist while having her own secret plans. She wants to be a femme fatale, but her treachery does not end well for her.

Despite depicting a few variations on the female form, Cooke seems to have a default idea about what a beautiful woman looks like, and the faces of women in The Hunter often resemble faces he’s drawn before in his superhero comics. The face of the woman who betrayed Parker could easily be Cooke’s Wonder Woman or Catwoman, and that makes her feel a bit generic.

Oddly, that works for The Hunter, because Westlake built the story around characters who don’t run very deep—whether male or female. They are more like archetypal examples of the tropes of hard-boiled detective and crime fiction, as if they are so primal to the genre that they need little exploration. The Hunter is unconcerned with delving into what makes them unique, remaining entirely focused on the relentless advance of the revenge plot. If you want well-rounded female characters with depth and agency, go read some Greg Rucka or Gail Simone stories—because it ain’t happening in Parker!

This criticism didn’t stop me from being totally caught up in the story. What I love about Cooke’s adaptation of The Hunter is how he chooses when to tell the story wordlessly and when to deliver exposition. We get some narration and one brief line of dialogue on the first page, and then nearly twenty-five pages of story told without a single word or sound effect. But in those wordless pages, all the action is so clear, expressive, and compelling that it comes as a shock when words once again appear on the page.

I also love how Cooke’s stripped-down approach to visuals honors Westlake’s stripped-down approach to prose for Parker. Compared to Westlake’s more lighthearted Dortmunder novels, the sentences in the Parker series are much leaner and tighter. Cooke’s artwork echoes that with a kind of minimalism, a simplicity that only conveys the bare essence of details to create the mood and tell the story. Panels lack borders, and thick shadows and bright light do almost all the work of defining images without lines. Cooke might depict the ironwork on a bridge by only inking its shadows and never drawing the outline of the overall shapes. While I love the detailed linework of artists such as Juan Jose Ryp, Geoff Darrow, or Steve McNiven, Cooke creates compelling environments and people using light, shadow, and monochromatic midtones.

The Outfit relies entirely on purple, and The Score uses a warm, dirty yellow that suits the setting in a hot desert mining town. While Sin City did something similar in a few volumes, those colors were more like occasional highlights than Cooke’s creative midtones.

It would have been fun to see another volume in red. The end of the fourth volume did promise another return of Parker. Sadly, Cooke was taken from us by cancer in 2016 at only fifty-three years old, and we never saw a fifth Parker adaptation.

Volumes two through four had interesting moments. The Outfit abruptly interrupts the established visual style to insert a series of explanations about a series of crimes. We get a multi-page newspaper article about a casino robbery, cartoon guides to horse-race gambling and smuggling cash on airplane flights to pay for heroin, and several pages of how to operate an illegal “numbers” betting operation. Everything I previously knew about “numbers running” came from The Autobiography of Malcolm X, so it was interesting to get Westlake’s rundown on these vintage illegal enterprises.

The fourth and final volume, Slayground, traps Parker in an abandoned amusement park where he comes up with clever ways to use the environment against gangsters who want his money from a job he narrowly escaped. One of his ideas is spraying a blob of paint on every surface in the hall of mirrors, then luring someone in. I’ve seen so many hall-of-mirrors scenes in movies that I hoped to never see one again, but this was a brilliant take that restored my faith in reflective surfaces.

Slayground also delivers powerful moments of cinematic, wordless storytelling such as a four-panel page of a car we just saw lose control on the icy roads on the previous page, and now goes tumbling over our heads into the distance. You can almost feel the impact.

But of all four tales, my favorite is the first: a relentless revenge over a double-cross that made a heist go horribly wrong. It’s harder than hard-boiled and blacker than noir, a morally vacant tale about a repulsive protagonist who gets the job done with his hands.

It’s no spoiler to tell you that Parker makes it out of The Hunter alive. Westlake wrote twenty-four of these novels, and Cooke adapted four. At this point, you go into the series knowing the stakes are not life-or-death for Parker.

That does lower the dramatic tension. If you know the main character can’t be killed, then that lowers your investment in his success. In a series such as Sin City or Criminal, where individual stories are told out of order, a character might very well meet their end in any particular episode—and often does. Investment is high. You never know what’s coming next.

With Parker, we know he is unstoppable. The fun comes not from wondering whether he will live or die, but discovering how he bends circumstances to his will no matter what life throws at him. Parker’s world is a grim place, and he is not a role model nor even likeable. But he is enjoyable as an immovable object in a world of irresistible forces, or maybe the other way around. He possesses a singular focus and physical strength, and a superior insight into his amoral world of crime, lies, and power that helps him make it out alive—and, if he’s lucky, with a bit of money in his pocket.

Collector’s Guide: You can currently get the complete four-volume set of Cooke’s Parker adaptations in digital format for about $40 through Kindle/Comixology. Each volume was also printed in hardcover and paperback editions.

Indie Box: Criminal by Brubaker and Phillips

04 Saturday Dec 2021

Posted by Mars Will Send No More in crime

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

crime, criminal, Ed Brubaker, Image Comics, indie box, Indie Comics, marvel icon, Sean Phillips

Criminal by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips has long been one of all-time favorite works of fiction in any medium, and the greatest crime is that I’ve never written about it since discovering it around thirteen years ago.

Things don’t end well for delusional and damaged desperado.

My first exposure to this prolific creative team was the Sleeper series, which was either the first or second time Brubaker and Phillips worked together. Set in the same “universe” as the WildC.A.T.s (created by Jim Lee) and featuring the villainous mastermind Tao (created by Alan Moore), Sleeper was an unsettling combination of the two main elements which gave rise to the superhero genre: crime fiction and science fiction.

But Sleeper had little use for superheroes, beyond guest-starring Grifter. Instead, it focused on the adventures of villains doing covert operations for shadowy organizations. Subverting the superhero genre, Brubaker treated Sleeper like a pulp crime story with a first-person narration by a deeply broken, hardboiled protagonist you would expect to find in a noir detective novel.

Things don’t end well for delusional and damaged dude who dukes it out.

When I discovered Criminal shortly thereafter, I was thrilled to see what Brubaker and Phillips could do with a pulp crime story without any of the superpowers and sci-fi. I joined the ongoing series around the time the first storyline was wrapping up, so I got a subscription and enjoyed the rabid, edge-of-my-seat anticipation of every new issue.

But it’s hard to say why I love this series so much. It’s hopeless, bleak, and downright depressing. Anything resembling a character’s redemption arc is sure to end in tragedy and tears. Everyone is either broken, or despicable, or both. Characters tend to be either victims of abuse, or abusers, or both. Any brief moments of happiness are either doomed, or illusory, or both. The world of Criminal is an inescapable hell that destroys everyone, even the most powerful and the most innocent.

Things don’t end well for delusional and damaged downtrodden dame.

Maybe my fascination with the series is related to that part of the human mind that can’t resist looking at a crash on the highway. That sick part of our monkey brains that slows down to see the carnage until the road is backed up with gawkers for miles. It’s probably the part of our minds that is responsible for slasher flicks and so-called “disaster porn”, the part that craves horror and violence even in otherwise well-adjusted people who normally avoid such things. Maybe Criminal channels that aspect of human experience into fiction where it’s safe, where no one really gets hurt. You can gawk at a fictional train wreck and not feel guilty.

Criminal is also a remarkable feat of storytelling. You can read any one of the self-contained stories on its own or, as Brubaker often says, in any order at all. The stories feature numerous recurring characters connected by the strands of their web of crime, and the stories are not delivered in chronological order. You might meet someone in one story, then discover their childhood in another. Someone who dies in one story might appear years earlier in another.

Through it all, narrative captions tend to focus on one character’s internal experience or monologue per issue, sometimes describing the action that appears in the panels, but more often a step removed from the story that Phillips tells visually, giving insight into what characters are thinking or feeling. You also see certain events from multiple perspectives—sometimes from issue to issue, and sometimes from story to story. This approach amplifies the feeling that all events are connected and inevitable.

Things don’t end well for delusional and damaged detective dude.

Criminal influenced my approach to storytelling when I started writing fiction, but the criminals I write about revel in their lawless lifestyles. They experience horror, but they mostly enjoy being on the wrong side of the law and doing what they do. They have fun!

Any fun that Brubaker’s criminals enjoy is a short-lived uptick on their downward spiral to despair and disaster. If you’re looking for happy endings or uplifting messages about the human condition, Criminal isn’t for you. The most fortunate characters end up dead, and the least fortunate keep on living, trapped in Brubaker’s sprawling saga of doom, degradation, and mutual destruction.

But the series is so well-constructed, so impenetrably dark, and so well-told that I find it impossible to avert my eyes from the wreck, and I have read and re-read each story many times. I think the saving grace, what makes it possible to wander into this cruel, noir world, is that so many of the characters evoke sympathy and empathy. Many of Brubaker’s villains tend to have some spark of humanity that makes them relatable. They are rarely evil for the sake of being evil, like so many poorly done “bad guys”. Instead, they have been twisted and morally deformed by the awful events of their lives.

Even a complete scumbag such as Teeg Lawless, who often beats and abandons his two sons, is shown to believe that in his own fucked-up way, he thinks he loves his kids. His deranged and damaged brand of “love” is not one I would wish on any child, but it’s consistent with the way that even the worst villains in these tales tend to think of themselves as some kind of heroes, even when they are so incredibly wrong.

Things don’t end well for damaged and delusional deadbeat dad.

That’s something we need to think about more often but has become increasingly rare. It is now easier than ever for delusional people to find similarly deluded people in Internet echo chambers and rally around causes that range from nonsensical to dangerous. It has become increasingly easy for people to embrace messages of hate in the name of love, to proclaim treason as patriotism, to promote lies they accept as truth, and to advance anti-social policies under the guise of freedom.

We could all use a bit of self-reflection to step back and ask ourselves whether or not our heroic stances are, in fact, villainous. When writing a good fictitious villain, the best authors know that the villain should be a hero in his or her own narrative about the world.

But that isn’t something that’s only true in fiction. It works in stories because it expresses something true about real people. I often look back on my life and am filled with regret for things I did and mistakenly thought were right at the time, only to realize later that despite being a hero in my own story, I was the villain in someone else’s, and things I believed to be right were so very, very wrong.

Criminal warns this is a universal aspect of human experience, and if there is any moral compass or lesson to be learned from Brubaker’s tragic tales, it is that we need to question our own ideas, assumptions, decisions, and sense of justice. If we don’t, then we will remain as trapped as the characters in Criminal, and nothing good can come from that.

Collector’s Guide: Criminal is spread out over the first ten-issue series, the second seven-issue series, the third twelve-issue series, the four-issue The Last of the Innocent, a single-issue Special Edition, a tenth-anniversary Special Edition, a standalone graphic novel, and the standalone Wrong Time, Wrong Place, for which I can’t seem to find a link. Various TPBs and “deluxe” editions have collected parts of it, and they range from easily found to difficult. I would love to see a definitive Criminal Omnibus collecting the entire thing in one or two volumes, but that has yet to happen.

indie box: A History of Violence

06 Wednesday Nov 2019

Posted by Mars Will Send No More in crime, indie

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

black and white, book review, crime, indie box, Indie Comics, john wagner, vince locke

This week’s pick from the short box of indie comics takes us once again into the world of crime fiction. A History of Violence from John “Judge Dredd” Wagner and Vince Locke really puts the “novel” in “graphic novel”, telling a deeply detailed story in its nearly 300 pages. I read it years ago but didn’t see the film until this summer. The book was more satisfying, especially the ending, which is a visceral punch to the gut in print but completely re-written and watered down for the film.

So, let’s start at the beginning, because A History of Violence opens with murderous intent.

Pretty soon, the murderers stop for a bite to eat in typical, small-town America, where everything is quaint, peaceful, and family-friendly. But when they try to start trouble at the local diner, the dude at the counter decides homie don’t play that shit, and he totally destroys them.

Diner dude wastes these guys and becomes a local celebrity. There, the story gets bogged down with scenes of his resultant interactions with the yuk-yuks from Anywhere, USA as they fawn over him at little-league games and other scenes I could skip. But this shift in the hero’s calm, daily life gets kicked up a notch when the leader of a criminal organization recognizes diner dude in a newspaper article, and decides to visit.

This scene begins a gradual reveal of diner dude’s past, and how he came to be involved with the underworld in his youth and eventually assumed a new identity so he could live a pastoral life in Generic, USA. The middle third of the book tells that story as a flashback, and it’s almost as much fun as the part in the Godfather novel where we flashback to Vito Corleone’s rise to power in his youth.

The first time I read A History of Violence, I couldn’t put it down. But upon re-reading, I could have done without so many extended, dialogue-heavy scenes of regular folks standing or sitting around while having an interpersonal drama. It often feels like this could be a real barnburner of a tale if we could just cut some of the “normal folks chatting in a mild state of distress” scenes, and get into the absolutely fucked-up criminal world that really drives the plot and drama. And by “absolutely fucked up”, I mean pages like this:

Earlier, I implied I didn’t like the movie, but mostly what I hated were the changes to the ending. In fact, the film did a better job portraying the shoot-out on diner dude’s lawn where his son was involved, and the film had a somewhat tighter pace. Also, Ed Harris as the eyeless criminal guy totally rocks.

I’m a bit ambivalent about the art in this story. The panel layouts and the visual storytelling of both quiet conversations and brutal conflict are top-notch, but I can’t escape the feeling that that I am looking at a sketch of the story instead of the final version. The art is very scratchy, and while it has a visceral power, after a couple hundred pages I started wishing another inker would come along and tighten it up. On the other hand, this is a gritty and compelling story once you get into it, and a gritty visual style suits it well.

Fans of crime fiction should read A History of Violence at least once because, despite its flaws, it is a dramatic and emotional journey that not even the film could match, and it isn’t a story you will soon forget. The original edition is long out of print, but the 2005 reprint will run you about $20.

Collector’s Guide: A History of Violence; 2005 reprint edition, Paradox Press.

indie box: Felon

16 Wednesday Oct 2019

Posted by Mars Will Send No More in crime, indie

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Tags

crime, felon, Greg Rucka, indie box, Indie Comics, top cow

Today’s pick from the short box of indie comics is Felon, a four-issue series from the mind of Greg Rucka, who is known for both his crime stories and his preference for writing female lead characters. I have a few other Rucka gems to share with you later, but they all feature a detective as the main character, and this one follows the adventures of a remorseless criminal.

She’s a bad-ass without being an over-the-top action hero, and even though we are sympathetic to her because her crew screwed her over, she isn’t exactly role-model material. She’s concerned about one thing, and one thing only, and this focus on her goal is apparent from page one. She is released from prison and only has three words to say:

She sticks to this simple, direct goal through three issues of violence, and the plot is pretty straight-forward, even when a new heist enters the picture. But the drive, the unrelenting focus she maintains, and her subordination of any empathy or morality to the intensity of her avarice made a huge impression on me. Felon influenced my own stories about an unrepentant female criminal who constantly smokes cigarettes and blasts anyone who gets in her way, so I owe Rucka and company a debt of gratitude.

But it’s the fourth issue that really blows my mind. The third issue brings an end to the heist story, and you wonder what’s next, but then Rucka turns the world upside down. The fourth issue introduces a female detective who is on the trail of our leading lady, completely switches to her point of view, and shows how her focus on the case destroys her personal life. Also, the first three issues are full color, but the fourth is black and white. The titular felon only appears in flashbacks related by other characters, such as a scene that recalls one of her robberies and demonstrates just how cold she can be.

Felon is a quick read but a fun one if you love crime fiction and bad-ass women, and you can get it for about $2 an issue.

Collector’s Guide: Felon #1-4; 2001, Top Cow.

indie box: Scene of the Crime

09 Wednesday Oct 2019

Posted by Mars Will Send No More in crime, indie

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crime, DC Comics, Ed Brubaker, indie box, Indie Comics, michael lark, scene of the crime

This week’s pick from the indie box isn’t even indie, having been published by DC Comics, but it has an indie feel and showcases the talents of two future superstars. Scene of the Crime is an early collaboration between Ed Brubaker and Michael Lark, who would later do an amazing run together on Daredevil at Marvel.

Scene_of_the_Crime_01_c01

Scene of the Crime follows the adventures of a private investigator as he unravels an increasingly sinister and fucked-up story, and I wanted to love it. It would probably make a solid movie. But after the second issue, I was flipping through pages to see the big reveal. The narration in the captions starts in first gear on page one and never really accelerates, and the art is sometimes too clean when it could use more grit and grime.

Scene_of_the_Crime_01_p01
The rainy, gritty noir feeling on this page rocks my world, I almost expect Marv to show up.

Scene of the Crime faces a structural problem in that we as readers get hints that the investigator has some past tragedy, but we don’t get told what it is until the final pages. This makes it feel more like a postscript than something crucial to understanding the character’s motivations, and by the time we get there, the main story is basically over. So, did it really matter? It feels like it didn’t.

Scene_of_the_Crime_04_p19

Despite its flaws, Scene of the Crime is a glimpse into the early days of a writer and artist team who eventually crafted tightly wound, tense crime stories. The four-issue series shows the team has the ability to tell a complex tale of crime and mystery, and I see it as a stepping stone to later masterpieces such as the Brubaker/Lark run on Daredevil and Brubaker’s collaboration with Sean Phillips on Criminal, one of my all-time favorite works of fiction.

Collector’s Guide: Scene of the Crime; DC Comics, 1999

Jack Kirby Crime: Tomorrow’s Murder!

04 Friday Oct 2013

Posted by Mars Will Send No More in crime

≈ 1 Comment

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crime, golden age, Jack Kirby, Prize

Prize published Treasure Comics from 1943-1947. It had all kinds of stories, from humor to adventure to fantasy. Lurking in the pages of the tenth issue you will find a crime story by Jack Kirby and Joe Simon: Tomorrow’s Murder! Kirby and Simon did not stay on the title for long but other greats like Frank Frazetta were also featured in it before its demise.

Collector’s Guide: From Treasure Comics #10; 1946



Jack Kirby Crime: The Money-Making Machine Swindlers!

23 Sunday Jun 2013

Posted by Mars Will Send No More in crime

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crime, Jack Kirby, Joe Simon, Justice Traps the Guilty, Prize

Early issues of Justice Traps the Guilty feature legendary collaborators Joe Simon and Jack Kirby producing “true” crime stories. The lives of criminals seemed to fascinate Kirby, and he would return to the subject twenty years later with In the Days of The Mob.

Collector’s Guide: From Justice Traps the Guilty; 1947-1953, Prize/Headline. The first three issues of Justice Traps the Guilty are now collected in a Kindle version!






Jack Kirby Crime: The Phony Check Racketeers!

09 Sunday Jun 2013

Posted by Mars Will Send No More in crime

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crime, Jack Kirby, Joe Simon, Justice Traps the Guilty, Prize

Early issues of Justice Traps the Guilty feature legendary collaborators Joe Simon and Jack Kirby producing “true” crime stories. The lives of criminals seemed to fascinate Kirby, and he would return to the subject twenty years later with In the Days of The Mob.

Collector’s Guide: From Justice Traps the Guilty; 1947-1953, Prize/Headline. The first three issues of Justice Traps the Guilty are now collected in a Kindle version!







Jack Kirby Crime: Underworld Snob!

02 Sunday Jun 2013

Posted by Mars Will Send No More in crime

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crime, Eddie Bentz, golden age, Jack Kirby, Joe Simon, Justice Traps the Guilty, Prize

Early issues of Justice Traps the Guilty feature legendary collaborators Joe Simon and Jack Kirby producing “true” crime stories. The lives of criminals seemed to fascinate Kirby, and he would return to the subject twenty years later with In the Days of The Mob.

Collector’s Guide: From Justice Traps the Guilty; 1947-1953, Prize/Headline. The first three issues of Justice Traps the Guilty are now collected in a Kindle version!




Jack Kirby Crime: The Masked Killer!

26 Sunday May 2013

Posted by Mars Will Send No More in crime

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crime, Jack Kirby, Joe Simon, Justice Traps the Guilty, Prize

Early issues of Justice Traps the Guilty feature legendary collaborators Joe Simon and Jack Kirby producing “true” crime stories. The lives of criminals seemed to fascinate Kirby, and he would return to the subject twenty years later with In the Days of The Mob.

Collector’s Guide: From Justice Traps the Guilty; 1947-1953, Prize/Headline. The first three issues of Justice Traps the Guilty are now collected in a Kindle version!

Jack Kirby Crime: Gun Moll!

19 Sunday May 2013

Posted by Mars Will Send No More in crime, golden age

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

crime, golden age, Jack Kirby, Joe Simon, Justice Traps the Guilty, Prize

Early issues of Justice Traps the Guilty feature legendary collaborators Joe Simon and Jack Kirby producing “true” crime stories. The lives of criminals seemed to fascinate Kirby, and he would return to the subject twenty years later with In the Days of The Mob.

Collector’s Guide: From Justice Traps the Guilty; 1947-1953, Prize/Headline. The first three issues of Justice Traps the Guilty are now collected in a Kindle version!





Jack Kirby Crime: The True Life Story of Alvin Karpis!

12 Sunday May 2013

Posted by Mars Will Send No More in crime, golden age

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Alvin Karpis, crime, golden age, Jack Kirby, Joe Simon, Justice Traps the Guilty, Prize

Early issues of Justice Traps the Guilty feature legendary collaborators Joe Simon and Jack Kirby producing “true” crime stories. The lives of criminals seemed to fascinate Kirby, and he would return to the subject twenty years later with In the Days of The Mob.

Collector’s Guide: From Justice Traps the Guilty; 1947-1953, Prize/Headline. The first three issues of Justice Traps the Guilty are now collected in a Kindle version!





Jack Kirby Crime: Alibi?

28 Sunday Apr 2013

Posted by Mars Will Send No More in crime, golden age

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Charlton comics, crime, golden age, Jack Kirby, Jack Kirby Museum, Police Trap

Joe Simon and Jack Kirby’s work on Police Trap has been well-documented at The Jack Kirby Museum. The collaborators watched their publisher fall to pieces, and they found Charlton was willing to help continue the title. Police Trap #5 was the first Charlton issue, but it would only last through #6.

Collector’s Guide: From Police Trap #5; 1955, Charlton



Jack Kirby Crime: Fight Fix!

21 Sunday Apr 2013

Posted by Mars Will Send No More in crime

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boxing, crime, Jack Kirby, Joe Simon, Justice Traps the Guilty, Prize

Early issues of Justice Traps the Guilty feature legendary collaborators Joe Simon and Jack Kirby producing “true” crime stories. The lives of criminals seemed to fascinate Kirby, and he would return to the subject twenty years later with In the Days of The Mob.

Collector’s Guide: From Justice Traps the Guilty; 1947-1953, Prize/Headline. The first three issues of Justice Traps the Guilty are now collected in a Kindle version!






Jack Kirby Crime: Counterfeit Cash!

14 Sunday Apr 2013

Posted by Mars Will Send No More in crime

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counterfeit money, crime, Jack Kirby, Joe Simon, Justice Traps the Guilty, Prize

Early issues of Justice Traps the Guilty feature legendary collaborators Joe Simon and Jack Kirby producing “true” crime stories. The lives of criminals seemed to fascinate Kirby, and he would return to the subject twenty years later with In the Days of The Mob.

Collector’s Guide: From Justice Traps the Guilty; 1947-1953, Prize/Headline. The first three issues of Justice Traps the Guilty are now collected in a Kindle version!




Jack Kirby Crime: Queen of the Speed-ball Mob!

07 Sunday Apr 2013

Posted by Mars Will Send No More in crime, golden age

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Tags

crime, Jack Kirby, Joe Simon, Justice Traps the Guilty, Prize

Early issues of Justice Traps the Guilty feature legendary collaborators Joe Simon and Jack Kirby producing “true” crime stories. The lives of criminals seemed to fascinate Kirby, and he would return to the subject twenty years later with In the Days of The Mob.

Collector’s Guide: From Justice Traps the Guilty; 1947-1953, Prize/Headline. The first three issues of Justice Traps the Guilty are now collected in a Kindle version!






100 Bullets 11: That’s Why I’m Here. There IS Something You Can Do!

06 Friday Jul 2012

Posted by Mars Will Send No More in crime

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100 Bullets, Agent Graves, Brian Azzarello, crime, Eduardo Risso

100 Bullets reads so intensely that we may need to create a Volume Two of our Top Ten Favorite Single Issues just to include it. The scene we’ll share with you today comes from the eleventh issue.

If you don’t know “the hook” of this series, please allow us: Agent Graves shows up one day with a briefcase for you. It contains a photo of the person responsible for the mess of your life, plus irrefutable proof of this. Also, you get a Smith & Wesson semi-automatic pistol with 100 “untraceable” .40-caliber bullets that, if found, will end any investigation into the incident. Graves gives you both the full evidence and the knowledge you will act “above the law.”

What you do with it is up to you.

As the series progresses, we learn more about Agent Graves and his shadowy organization, and his true motives. But in the early issues, before the plot thickens and a web of intrigue spins out of control, we get a few stories that focus more on this ‘hook’ than Azzarello’s unfolding epic.

In the scene below, Agent Graves tells a grieving mother the final fate of her missing daughter. While the scene relies on exposition, the previous scene (not included here) establishing her daughter’s absence is told entirely without words. Eduardo Risso uses a stark but tender moment in an empty child’s bedroom to convey the mother’s sadness. This scene in the diner, though, and the matter-of-fact delivery from Graves, suggest that despite horror he relates, Graves has seen many such horrors in his life. What could possibly compel him to present these briefcases, to open these personal wounds, and to offer these opportunities?

This episode of 100 Bullets raises questions about Graves’ motives and morality. On the one hand, he seems cold and cruel, chomping on a piece of pie as he relentlessly relates a tale that touches on just about every nightmare a parent could have for their child. On the other hand, while many of these scenes turn out to be part of the larger plot where Graves gets his old crew back together, this episode has nothing to do with that. Graves gives this poor woman the brutal truth and the means for justice (or revenge, depending on your perspective) with no gain for his organization or larger plan.

This suggests a much deeper moral characterization for Agent Graves. Often accused of simply playing a game, Graves seems to be either a sadist or a firm believer in a kind of higher justice. Moreover, Graves never takes matters into his own hands to right wrongs such as these. He puts that power in the hands of the injured party. He seems driven to pose this moral question to those he confronts. Yet, on the final page of this issue (not included here) where Graves witnesses the outcome of this woman’s choice, he takes no sadistic glee in the moment. Rather, he appears wordlessly somber, sober, serious. This is no laughing matter for Graves, not something he takes lightly.

Azzarello and Risso never, not in 100 issues, give us any thought bubbles or voice-overs to convey what’s going on inside Graves’ head. They leave us to judge him existentially — by his actions alone — through his dialogue, body language, and facial expressions, which Risso masterfully depicts throughout the series. Graves, therefore, poses the essential moral themes of the story to us, asking the question but never explicitly giving the answer. Just as he does with the briefcase and the bullets, Graves leaves the reader to draw the conclusions on their own.

It’s a great story, and we highly recommend the entire series. What you do with it is up to you.

Collector’s Guide:
– From 100 Bullets #11; DC/Vertigo,.
– Reprinted in the 100 Bullets TPB #2
– Collected in 100 Bullets The Deluxe Edition Book One




Indie Comics Review: Escape to Mizar 5!

30 Wednesday May 2012

Posted by Mars Will Send No More in first issue, indie

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Tags

Apeface and Crumplezone, crime, Escape to Mizar 5, Indie Comics, One Night, Waranghira

Escape To Mizar 5 is a new independent comic book about two career criminals who arrive in chains on a prison planet and take over the crime syndicate from the ground up. It’s a fun romp full of hustles, aliens, tough street talk, and laser blasters. The energetic artwork by Waranghira, especially the inking style and zip-a-tone, brings to mind the early days of Lawson & Lavigne on Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. We had a lot of fun reading it!

Download Escape to Mizar 5 in PDF – free from Mediafire!


The story of Escape to Mizar 5 ties into a full-length space-rap concept album by authors Apeface & Crumplezone. The comic book tells of Apeface & Crumplezone’s interplanetary criminal adventures, and the 16 songs on the album follow that story, too. We were impressed with the smooth groove and high production values of the first single, One Night.

Download One Night – $0.99 from iTunes

Apeface and Crumplezone have put together a great package: a radio-ready rap/R&B single and a hip indie comic to promote the full album. While gearing up for release this summer, they’ve given us permission to give you advance access to their tasty jams and their comic book. Enjoy Escape to Mizar 5!

Catch up with Apeface and Crumplezone on Facebook.

Public Enemies: One Man Crime Wave!

29 Tuesday May 2012

Posted by Mars Will Send No More in crime, golden age

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Tags

Art Gates, crime, DS Publishing, golden age, Lester Brockle, One Man Crime Wave, Public Enemies

Here’s a fun true-crime story from 1948 — if you think murder, mayhem, and abuse are fun, that is! “The True Story of Lester Brockle” claims to be based on a true story about a vicious criminal who ended up in the electric chair. We found it hard to research the facts because all of the names have been changed! Still, it’s one of the more compelling stories from a classic crime comic.

Collector’s Guide: From Public Enemies #3; D.S. Publishing, 1948. Art by Art Gates.




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