Wayne Markley

by Wayne Markley

The first thing that comes to mind when the title Detective Comics is brought up is the long-running (over 70 years now) comic book starring Batman. Despite the title of the comic, Detective Comics, it really is not a detective comic or even a crime comic. It is a traditional superhero comic. While it is very good in its own right, it is not a comic about detectives. In fact, there are very few comics about detectives in the traditional sense; Miss Marpel, Sherlock Holmes, Peroit, Sam Spade, etc. But there are a number of crime comics that on occasion involve detectives, and that is what this blog post is going to be about. Most of these titles do not get the attention of the Avengers or Batman, but they are just as good, if not better in a number of ways.

Thief of Thieves

First off, we have Thief of Thieves which was created by Robert (Walking Dead) Kirkman, but since issue one has been written by Nick Spencer and James Asmus and drawn by Shawn Martinbrough. This book tells the story of Conrad Paulson, a master thief who stepped away from the profession and tried to move on. But after his one last big heist that did not go as planned, the story starts with non-stop thrills and action. This is a story that could happen in real life as there are no capes and tights, but there are tons of double crosses and violence galore. This book is the equivalent of a cable crime drama, where the story is very good but at times it can be too violent, but still worth looking at.

Richard Stark’s Parker The Hunter

Darwyn Cooke has been adapting Richard Stark’s Parker novels at the pace of one a year for a while now. So far there have been three releases (Score, Hunter, and Outfit) and there is a forth coming soon. These are faithful adaptations of the hard boiled crime novels they are based on. Each hardcover book is a self-contained story and the storytelling is a tour-de-force in graphic design. Cooke makes use of every possible technique in these novels, from design to use of color (there are only three colors per story) to page layout. The stories are all set in the early 1960s which Cooke beautifully captures with stylized art that makes you feel you are in Vegas or New Jersey or whereever the story is set. These adaptations have been praised to the high heavens over the years, and every word of it is well deserved.

Hit

Hit is a mini-series from BOOM! Studios. So far three of the four issues have come out, but the three issues so far keep you on the edge of your seat. It is a traditional crime store with lots of deception and people not really being who the claim to be. Bryce Carlson and Vanessa R. Del Ray have put together a complex tale filled with the classic premise of a man who meets a women and gets dragged into a world he did not want to be part off, but he is so drawn to the woman he will do anything for her. The end results are not what either one would hope for. I am looking forward to the final issue of this crime drama and I am sure the end will be as shocking as the first three issues have been.

Sherlock Holmes: The Liverpool Demon

Dynamite has done a number of Sherlock Homes’ miniseries over the last few years. All of these have been very good in telling all new stories of the good detective and his assistant Doctor Watson. Sherlock Holmes: The Liverpool Demon by Leah Moore, John Reppion, and Matt Triano is more horror story than traditional mystery, yet it is a fascinating read as Holmes and Watson investigate a number of mauled bodies in Liverpool and the crimes are being attributed to Spring-Heeled Jack. The truth is far more deadly than an urban legend like Spring Heeled Jack. The complete mini-eries has been collected into a full color trade paperback. Another Sherlock Holmes series from Dynamite is Sherlock Holmes Year One by Scott Beatty and Daniel Indro. This full color collection tells the story of a young Sherlock Holmes first meeting with John Watson as they join forces to solve a crime and a mystery many years before they would team up on a regular basis. It is a great read looking at Holmes from a different perspective than most of the traditional Homes stories.

Criminal

While it seems that Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips have moved on from their amazing series Criminal, it is still worth mentioning as it is a tour de force of comic book storytelling. As with Darwyn Cooke’s Parker adaptations, Brubaker and Phillips are able to create a world that comes to life with short but connected stories of the seedy side of a big city. The stories revolve about a small group of criminals, almost all related in some fashion, and the choices they make, mostly poor, and the effects it has on their lives. As the stories unfold, you get to know these characters and the city they crawl around in to the point where you feel for the characters and you feel dirty having been in the city. It is rare that a comic can so fully immerse you in its world that you are sad, or at least miss that world, when you finish reading the book. Criminal comes in a variety of formats, including deluxe, lush hardcovers, economical trade paperbacks, and the single comics if you can find them. I only mention the single comics, because as with Brubaker’s others comics (Incognito and Fatale), the single comics contain articles and editorials about the influences on the stories Brubaker has written, be it other authors or movies or pulps. These articles are not collected in the hardcover or the trade paperbacks.

Crime Does Not Pay

There are very few true crime comics out there. While in the past, most notably in the 1950s, there were tons of crime comics. If you want to see what the crime comic from the 1950s were like, Dark Horse has been doing archives edition of Lev Gleason’s Crime Does Not Pay! These are very typical of the crime comics of the 50s with tough talking gangsters and the even tougher police who bring these crooks to justice. They tend to be very wordy, and the art is crude by today’s standards, but from a historical perspective they are very interesting. So far there are five volumes with volume 6 coming soon, and each one is full color in a beautiful hardcover format.

As always, everything written here is my opinion and in no way reflects the thoughts, tastes, opinions or anything else related to Westfield Comics or their employees. I welcome your thoughts and comments at MFBWAY@AOL.COM.

Thank you.