Guy Davis (1) (1966–)

Punks are cool. Mysteries are cool. Sherlock Holmes is cool. These three things alone suggest that Honor Among Punks should be awesome, and as it turns out, it is.

Set in London sometime in the early 90's of a world that never experienced WWII, The Baker Street stories revolve around Sue, an American medical student, and her punk roommates. One of these roommates, Shanon, also happens to be a former police detective and one of the finest deductive minds in the Western world. Luckily, the punk show more scene of alternate London provides no shortage of crimes and cases to be cracked by this rag-tag team of amateur detectives.

This thick, heavy volume contains two long stories and a few brief vignettes that originally ran monthly around the turn of the 1990's by Caliber Comics. As behooves a good independent title, the writing is full and rich. Davis and Reed have a real understanding of character and conflict, with a dramatis personæ who learn and evolve even through the scant ten issues that were published. The cases Shanon and company undertake are layered and complex, existing in a fascinating sub-culture that may or may not have ever really existed, but which comes at us fully formed with cliques, politics, and territory the story only just penetrates. By the end, I was terribly frustrated that I was not going to learn anything more about this fascinating new world.

At first the black and white art may seem very... hmmmm perhaps 'independent' is the best word for it. The lines are rough, but give it a moment and one quickly sees that Guy Davis' art is full of detail and energy: we're dealing with real people here in a real world, even if they are only about two inches high and glossy. On a side note, it is also quite fun to see Davis' art change every so slightly through the course of the work as he learns more about his characters and refines their style. He is also sure to keep everything within the Neo-Victorian aesthetic of his alternate world, from clothes and architecture right down to the font of the sound effects, a touch that really brings it all together.

My only real complaint is that the book is put together a bit too cheaply. Sure, it's on glossy paper, but the layout is a bit off with some margins going off the page, and sub-standard printing means that occasionally, there simply isn't any ink where there should be. That, and the lettering is often a little too erratic to read easily, though I suppose that fits in with the punk setting.

Technical flaws notwithstanding, Honor Among Punks is a fantastic tribute to Doyle's Sherlock Holmes created by two men with a deep love of both the source material and the modern subculture in which they transplant it. It is a real shame that we may never see more work out of Baker Street from these artists, as there is a vast world there waiting to be revealed. show less

I liked this volume much better than the second one. In this one, there is a female serial killer targeting and killing men in extreme and weird ways. Once again, Wesley a.k.a. the Sandman is on the job to find out who the killer is and bring them to justice. This time I figured out the killer pretty early on but it was still a great story. Good graphics. The only thing is that Dian is getting a wee bit annoying in this one and I hope she calms down in the next volume.

This is the first volume of Sandman Mystery Theatre to draw connections with the wider DC universe-- in this case, the appearance of Rex Tyler, here called the "Man of the Hour," but eventually to become the superhero "Hourman." "The Hourman" is an oddly imbalanced story; half of it is about Wesley and Dian's evolving relationship, as usual, and half of it is about the Hourman's attempts to begin a crime-fighting career. They cross over in that Wesley discovers the Hourman in the course of show more his own activities as the Sandman, and the Hourman's investigations lead him to the same crime the Sandman is hearing about in his dreams. The relationship stuff is good, especially now that Dian is actively helping Wesley's crime-fighting, but it's overshadowed by the stuff with Hourman; I love a good origin story, and this is an excellent one. It doesn't help that the mystery here is perfunctory; Wesley spends more time investigating Rex Tyler than he does the crime, and the crime itself is stealing jewelry from an immoral and obnoxious rich person. It's hard to get worried about this. Far more interesting is Rex's fumbling attempts to help a family in trouble with local gangs.

The second story here, "The Python," is the first SMT story that completely did not work for me. To start with, it suffers from the same problem as every story with a fill-in artist: Warren Pleece is not Guy Davis. His art is simpler than Guy Davis's and more cartoony, which isn't really appropriate for the gritty atmosphere of SMT, but it's also just less accomplished. There's a lot of ugly or distorted faces, and not always in spots where they're wanted, I think. But also, the mystery this one just doesn't work-- earlier SMT stories suffered from a superfluity of suspects; this one has almost none, and then the murderer is someone completely different, with no previously indicated means, motive, or opportunity. (But still a contrived link to Dian.) It's lame, and the Sandman scarcely contributes until the obligatory fight scene at the end; everyone's favorite asshole cop Lieutenant Burke does most of the work again. Which is cool, I like Burke, but this isn't Lieutenant Burke Mystery Theatre. The other thing that doesn't work about "The Python" is that while Dr. Death and The Night of the Butcher showed Dian's initial horror at Wesley's secret life and then acceptance, and "The Hourman" showed her actually helping him, she all of a sudden backslides here for no readily apparent reason. Call my cynical, but I think Wesley and Dian's split is solely to set up the crossover in the next installment...

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Like The Face and The Brute, Dr. Death and The Night of the Butcher includes two complete tales of the Sandman, a.k.a. Wesley Dodds, as he fights crime in the dark underbelly of New York City. And as if the writers read my objection to the fact that every victim in this series deserves it, the book even opens up the murder of an innocent man! (Um, yay?) But as was the case in the last couple stories, the murder mystery (which as usual is coincidentally linked to Dian Belmont's social circle) show more is a sideshow to the developments in the relationship between Wesley and Dian. Dian has figured out that Wesley is the Sandman, but doesn't quite know what to do about it. And Wesley doesn't quite know how to integrate her needs into his already-structured life.

Wesley actually has very little to do with solving "The Night of the Butcher" especially, but that's okay, as it allows Lieutenant Burke to really shine, along with Hubert Klein. But as Wes's personal life disintegrates, so does his crimefighting one-- Burke discovers the radio hidden under his desk that transmits all his conversations to the Sandman! What's a masked mystery man to do? And what's Dian to do? There are no easy answers here, and the series swings back and forth between tender and painful, as they try to negotiate their strange new status quo. Especially effective here are the recurring dreams of the Sandman, a staple of the series from the beginning, that in this one hit a new high in disturbingness, probably thanks to some nice comic book tricks (Scott McCloud would be proud).

The only downside to this volume is that Guy Davis only does layouts for "Dr. Death," with the somewhat inferior Vince Locke on art. On the other hand, the brutal fight at the end of "The Night of the Butcher" is probably the series' best action sequence so far, nicely showcasing the Sandman's determination, Lieutenant Burke's antagonism, and Dian Belmont's passion. Sandman Mystery Theatre continues its string of successes.

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