Stumptown, Volume 1: The Case of the Girl Who Took Her Shampoo (But Left Her Mini)

Another of Rucka's damaged, driven heroines, Dex is a bit more laid-back and cool, but she's still got a gambling problem and a mentally handicapped brother to support. A down-at-heel PI with slightly tarnished heart of gold, she walks down the mean streets of Portland Oregon. Inveigled, rather than hired, to search for a missing grandaughter, she quickly finds herself roughed up by an unsavoury pair and invited for words with a terrifying local gangster. So it's not a straightforward missing-person case, is it? Stumptown is like an updating of The Rockford Files with its sensible, likeable, honourable, protagonist plagued by the worst luck, and the utterly gorgeous artwork by Matthew Southworth gives it an amazing atmosphere.

Wow, I fell write into this book and was sad when I stumbled out of it at the end. Dex Parios is a private investigator and she's really stepped into it this time. Her gambling debts have gotten ahead of her and the owner of the casino is calling Dex in to make good on them. Her granddaughter has gone missing and she wants Dex to clear her schedule immediately and find her. Easier said then done. The granddaughter was running with some bad people and its only going to get worse before it gets better. Gritty, witty, and all around bad-ass. I want to continue reading this series and I definitely want to watch the TV adaptation. So glad to have a new graphic novel series to devour. I'm all in!

Greg Rucka is a longtime favorite writer of mine, so I was happy to see he was doing a private eye series. Unfortunately, I had set my expectations too high. This throwback to 70s and 80s TV detectives features a perfectly fine crime story, but it also seems pretty inconsequential. Also, I was made uncomfortable by a few aspects, like the amount of physical abuse heaped on the female protagonist, the frequently exhibited homophobia of several characters, and the use of the "R" word to refer to a character with Down syndrome. I think they were used to add to the gritty atmosphere and the flip attitude of the main character but these moments really clunked for me and threw me out of the story. Still, I enjoyed the book enough to read four show more volumes of the series in three days. show less

With comics such as Queen & Country and Whiteout, Rucka established a much deserved reputation for producing superior crime stories featuring female protagonists. In Stumptown Volume 1: The Case of the Girl Who Took her Shampoo (But Left her Mini), Rucka returns to this familiar territory. In order to pay back a massive gambling debt, Stumptown Investigations proprietor Dex Parios searches for the missing granddaughter of Sue-Lynne, head of the Confederate Tribes of the Wind Coast's casino operations. During her quest, Dex reveals the darker sides of Portland, OR. She receives numerous threats and beatings. She is shot and no one trusts her. Making things even more difficult, the surly Dex continually angers both the police and the show more gangs. As with all of Rucka's works, the relationships between the characters propel the tale. Through his dialogue and pacing, he elevates the potentially stereotypical portrayals into powerful individual identities. The moody, minimalist Southworth art further enhances the riveting tale. As an added bonus, this hardcover volume includes a reprint of the rare 8-page, micro-comic Dex Parios adventure and a selection of promotional items. show less

I like Stumptown. The art is a little weak, but Greg Rucka’s writing carries it. It’s a good detective story. I’m not usually a detective fan, but this is solid and makes me want to read more.

I like the Northwest setting. There are too many NYC detectives. America is a big place and we have crime everywhere. All the good detectives can’t pile up in the biggest cities.

This graphic novel revolves around Dex, a PI who has a younger brother to take care, a brother she describes as mentally retarded. To her credit, she does love him very much, and while he wouldn't be able to get to work without her there to remind him when he needs to go, she also doesn't talk down to him.

In fact, she's pretty brutally honest. When she gets cold cocked, she doesn't cover up why she's bruised, and she tells him. (She does lie about being shot although she was wearing Kevlar, and thus came out relatively unharmed. And that's pretty heavy for anyone. I could see her smudging the truth or flat out lying about to her brother regardless of how challenged he was or not. She doesn't talk down to him about the stuff she would show more tell everyone else - but that doesn't mean that she'll tell everyone everything.)

Dex also has a gambling problem, part of that problem being that she doesn't stop until after she loses. And she's in a lot of debt to the casino. Luckily for her, Sue-Lynne, the woman running the casino, is missing one granddaughter and worried enough to hire Dex, and wipe out her debt if the PI can find Charlotte.

Of course, Charlotte's case involves a lot more than simply tracking the young woman down. It means tangling with powerful family, and those who are paid a lot to protect those people.

It's gritty, it's gleeful, it's fun. One half star knocked off because the art didn't work for me occasionally. It's stylistic and gritty and works in the most part, but it gets looser in some parts, and that's when it started not working for me. show less

Rucka has managed to do the down-on-their-luck detective story without coming across as cliche. Good crime story and a good setup for a series worth reading.