Diana Schutz

Half are great and half are weak with obvious plots, tissue thin characters, and passable artwork. It seemed like a lot of the writers thought it was noir just to write about crime and put in a twist, but noir is really a mood and an evocation, not just shadowy panels and dames with obscure motives. Many feel like snippets of a bigger whole but the few pieces that sing really go to town. Lime I said about six or so on here that really get what noir means.

Painful and disturbing (while beautifully drawn), this volume makes explicit something often tacit in Matt Wagner's Grendel cycle, the multiple connections between aggression and gender, and the way it plays out within families. Filling in a bit of the Grendel story only alluded to in Wagner's work, Devil Child explores the tragic experience of Stacy Palumbo, Hunter Rose's adopted daughter and the mother of Christine Spar, the second Grendel.

This is a collection of short, twisted (some more than others) crime stories. I’m unsure what boundaries we should give to noir, so I’m not going to worry about whether they are truly noir. They do have the atmosphere and the despondency. And I think the graphic novel format is well suited for conveying those things.

It’s a quick read, about an hour. The art is clear and bright in black and white — none of that “what the heck is going on in that frame” thing that modern comics so show more often fall into. The storylines are pretty easy to follow, although some are heavier on atmosphere and feel than plot, especially the skewish but well-done Fracture by Alex de Campi and Hugo Petrus.

Like I said, the stories are short — 11 stories in about 100 pages. So there’s a kind of economy of impact. The stories provide a punch, and that’s it. Very little complication, although of course at the cost of developing involved plots.

But, for what they are, they are entertaining and sometimes provocative. This, along with what I’ve read of Velvet and the classic EC Archives Crime SuspenStories, inspires me to what to get more into the genre. show less

I wasn't sure what to expect when I first began reading this collection of graphic short stories. There are thirteen stories in all, each of them dark and gritty. And I loved just about every one. The first story left me stunned. The second, about a man with an ill wife who is about to lose his farm, is probably my favorite. It was called "The Silo" and was written and drawn by Jeff Lemire. Another one of my favorites was called "The Albanian" by M.K. Perker about an immigrant janitor who show more stumbles upon a murder-suicide in the office building where he works. I had to read the story called "Fracture" by Alex de Campi, Hugo Petras, and Clem Robbins twice because I hadn't realized the first time there was a special way to read it. The author and artist were quite creative with the set up of the story. I think it is pretty ingenious now that I better understand what they were aiming to do.

My experience with crime fiction short stories is hit and miss. Too often I find that characterization is sacrificed in the name of plot. Although I have read crime fiction graphic novels before, this was my first experience reading crime fiction shorts in graphic form. I was really impressed with how well done each of the stories were. So much is said within each pane and so few words are needed to get the entire story across (except in one case which was a short story, "Trustworthy" by Ken Lizzi and Joëlle Jones, written in words with a few art drawings to go along with it). I think readers of noir and who don't mind a lot of grit in their crime fiction should give Noir: A Collection of Crime Comics a try. show less