Criminal

For the past week I've been reading a series of comics entitled Criminal by Ed Brubaker and illustrated by Sean Phillips. I picked up the first 4 volumes after Amazon recommended the series to me for my interest in Brian Azzarello (100 Bullets), and I have to say these are some of the best stories in comics I've ever read. It's very reminiscent of Frank Miller's Sin City (Miller even writes him an introduction in the 2nd volume) in that all the action takes place in the same geographic area in that hard boiled detective writing style.

Stories are either narrated by the author or the protagonist of the story line and each text box fills in all the minute details making every page more succulent than the last. There's the war vet who returns home after his brother turned up dead that can't seem to shake his daddy issues, the expert thief who's always been able to keep off the police's radar who gets sucked into a heist he can't make a clean escape from, and the son of a mobster's advisor who just wants to make his own way and live a crime free life. There are femme fatals, bullets, guns, American muscle cars making Bullet style getaways, and plot twists that you will never see coming - I guarantee you. There are no full page splash panels here.

The art in these books is there to serve the story only. Ever page is divided into thirds and the most real estate on piece of art will get is 1/3 of the page. That's not to say the art isn't great, in fact every panel captures the beat of what's going on in the story better than the best directed, best acted films of today. Aside from a fictional city, these stories take place in the real world and real things happen. There are no deus ex machina elements to complain about. No one is invincible, everyone is vulnerable and I have yet to finish a story without uttering "wow." Every volume is a self contained story so you can guilt free read an issue without worrying what will happen to so and so next month. The series is still ongoing though so you will be waiting on edge for the next volume to drop just like I'm waiting to get my hands on Mass Effect II this winter. Give this series a shot. You will not regret it.

Grade A-

Meta Grade 91

(While I love the series, I still haven't come accross any super awesome quoatable lines like Frank Miller's Sin City is full of. I guess "Worth Dyin' for, worth killin' for, worth goin' to Hell for, amen" and "It's time to prove to your friends that you're worth a damn. Sometimes that means dying. Sometimes that means killin' a lot of people" are hard to compete with.)