Criminal, Vol. 3: The Dead and the Dying

If the first book places us in the underworld setting for this hardboiled graphic novel series, and the second cements its formalist approach, the third makes serious music with that approach. This book contains three closely related stories, all focused on a young generation suffering fates due to ties to a criminal organization. It's heartbreaking stuff, and it's to the credit of the author, Ed Brubaker, that despite the tight plotting, the characters never feel like they're being pushed in a particular direction in order for his complex overall narrative structure to hold.

The third volume of Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips’ Criminal series contains three interlocking tales all revolving around Danica, a beautiful but ultimately flawed woman.

With this volume, you’re beginning to see their universe take shape. There are characters resurfacing, settings reappearing and themes continuing. With Brubaker, the writing, as always, is top-notch and his consistent collaborator Sean Phillips brings it home with his excellent style.

With the Criminal series, Brubaker and Phillips are bringing us some of the strongest tales outside of your standard comic fare. If you’re not reading their work, you’re seriously missing out on some fantastic work that transcends the funny-book genre – belonging next to some of show more the more classic hard boiled and noir tales While this third volume is not exactly the strongest of the three, a weaker Brubaker/Phillips book is usually stronger than most’s best.

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Another brutal, gory and sexy comic book collection about crooks and the underworld.

Reminiscent of his run on Daredevil, Ed Brubaker brings us inter-related stories of drug barons, small-time crooks and the criminal world. A lot of sex, dead bodies, beatings and maimings ensue.

The artwork and story-writing are powerful and I’d recommend this to all lovers of crime stories.

Did not like Volume 3 as much as the two earlier volumes, perhaps because of the three interconnected stories seemed disjointed. The sons of two city gangsters grown up together: a black boxer and a white roustabout. Their friendship is torn asunder by beautiful, sexy Danica, with her story really serving as the backbone for the book. The twisted and seemingly minor role of Lawless was also a disappointment, at least for me. Not sure whether I will continue the series.

Noir/pulp/awesome