More Crime!

Archie Comics, Chick Tracts, Teenage Murders, and Other Horrors!

Here’s the point?

I am sorry for neglecting this newsletter. There are a few factors. The only worth detailing is I had the idea to read every comic by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips and write about them all. I quickly burned out. By the end of last month’s newsletter I was over the idea but I kept reading. Below are three more Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips reviews. I read a handful more and there’s still a few I haven’t looked at, but this is the last time I’ll write about them.

I’m giving up my life of crime. Comics are for children.

For no good reason I’ve recommended music/tv/movies to accompany each book. Maybe this is a new thing I do. Only time will tell.

Enjoy!

Criminal: The Deluxe Edition, Volume Two. First published in 2017 by Icon.

Three more Criminal stories. All in the same world. Different protagonists. Recurring characters. Everyone is still a criminal whether they like it or not.

The first story. Jacob draws a newspaper comic about a detective named Frank Kafka, P.I. Jacob was featured in two earlier Criminal stories, helping both Leo and Tracy Lawless. One night at a diner Jacob witnesses an altercation between a man and a woman. It turns violent and the man is kicked out of the diner. Jacob gives the woman a ride home. Her name is Iris. They have sex. After they have sex she walks around his house in his shirt. When women need to seem vulnerable they wear oversized men's shirts with no pants on. Her vulnerability gets Jacob to open up. He's entirely enamored. He tells her that years before his wife died in a car accident. Even though it was ruled an accident the cops believe he killed his wife. The cops beat him up so bad his legs were permanently fucked. He walks with a limp. After Iris leaves he fantasizes about her. Not much later her boyfriend from the diner, Danny, appears at Jacob's front door. Danny beats Jacob; ties him up.

Iris and Danny know that Jacob used to be a counterfeiter. They want him to make fake FBI credentials so that Danny can impersonate an FBI agent and steal money. The day of the heist Danny makes Jacob go along. He's now their wheelman. Like all heists in Criminal, it goes bad. Jacob shoots Danny. Danny shoots Jacob. Danny dies. Jacob survives. Jacob and Iris hide the body in a well, torch the car, and run. They have more sex. Iris wears more oversized men's shirts without pants.

The next day cops show up at Jacob's house. They know everything. Iris is in bed (literally and figuratively) with the cop that fucked up Jacob's legs. They were framing him. Jacob proves an unreliable narrator. He has anger issues. Turns violent. He did kill his wife. He kills the cop too. He kills Iris too. It ends with Jacob alone in the hospital. His comic strip is being given to someone else. He has nothing.

The second story. Tracy Lawless, again. Tracy Lawless works for Sebastian Hyde. Hyde is the city crime lord. Someone in the city is killing off criminals. It isn't Hyde, so Hyde wants to know who it is. He asks Lawless to look into it. Lawless is a former military man, not a detective. Still, Lawless does what he is told.

Secretly, Lawless is sleeping with Hyde's wife. Hyde thinks Lawless is sleeping with his daughter, so he has someone follow Lawless. A military sergeant comes to town looking for Lawless, who is AWOL.

A local priest is having three young boys murder criminals around the city. Nobody notices the kids. Hiding in plain sight. One kid is supposed to kill Lawless, but after following him decides Lawless isn't bad like their other targets. He realizes the priest is lying to him. The sergeant finds Lawless, arrests him, takes him back to war. Hyde's guy following Lawless kills the priest.

The third story. A new character, Riley. Riley's dad dies so he returns to his hometown. He's reunited with his childhood best friends, Freakout and Lizzie. Freakout is a recovering drug addict and alcoholic. He regularly attends AA meetings and for the first time in his life seems to be doing well for himself. Riley and Lizzie always liked each other, but in high school a rich girl named Felicity (Felix) moved to town. After that Riley and Felix were inseparable. Now they're married. Riley is in a rut. Felix is having an affair. Seeing Lizzie makes him wonder what could have been.

Riley decides he wants to be with Lizzie. It's not only her as a person but everything she represents. It's everything his life isn't. Simple. Happy. He hates his job, working for Felix's dad. He doesn't fit in to their world of wealth, but he likes the ease and comfort money. Divorce isn't an option. The only way out, for some reason, is to murder Felix. He hatches an elaborate plan. It involves getting Freakout drunk and making him a blacked out alibi. It works.

Freakout totally falls off the wagon. Freakout knows Riley got him drunk so to use him. Riley doesn't feel safe as long as Freakout knows. So he leaves heroin around. Freakout can't help himself and ODs. Riley doesn't care. He gets to be with Lizzie. He believes that everyone who truly knows how evil he is is dead. Now he can create a new self. Be whoever he wants. With Lizzie as his girlfriend he seems to believe he'll be a good person this time. I doubt it.

The love triangle between Riley, Lizzie, and Felix as well as the fuck-up best friend with a weird name are intentional references to Archie Comics. For the first time Sean Phillips does something different with the art. Sections of each chapter are drawn in the house style of Archie Comics. Apparently even he is bored of Ed Brubaker telling the same story with the same characters and needs to mix it up to stay engaged. He juxtaposes the childlike innocence of Archie and friends with the gritty, criminal world. Like Riverdale did years later. Like David Lynch did years earlier.

In Criminal there is no outside of crime. No one can report a crime to the cops because the cops are crooked. No one can report a crime to the newspaper because the newspapers are owned by crime families. Doctors and nurses are criminals. Priests are criminals. Everyone is a criminal. Brubaker and Phillips have created a world, but it isn't recognizable. No one is kind, no one laughs, no one really cares about anything. Except stealing money and having sex. Freakout and Lizzie were outside crime, but Riley killed Freakout and its ominous for Lizzie in the end.

There's a Norwegian writer, Stig Sæterbakken. In 1997 he published a book called Siamese. It is about an elderly married couple. Edwin is blind but can hear. Erna is deaf but can see. Edwin has locked himself in the bathroom and chews gum. He's trying to separate his mind from his body. He yells at Erna. Erna lives outside the bathroom. Takes verbal and emotional abuse from Edwin. Her whole life revolves around him. They are fatally co-dependent. Honestly, I don't remember much about the book, but I remember feeling trapped inside it. While trapped inside everything felt frustrating, pointless, and sad. Stig Sæterbakken ended his own life in 2012. Before reading Siamese that is the only thing I knew about him. After reading Siamese I thought to myself, and I really don't mean to be glib about this, "If this book represents how he saw the world, it's not surprising he ended his own life. What a unbearable place to be."

That isn't how I felt after reading the first Criminal but having read six Criminal stories it's starting to feel like there is no happiness, no trust, no contentment, nothing good, just stealing money, having sex, betrayal, abuse, and loneliness. Maybe Brubaker and Phillips agreed. They stopped making Criminal for five years.

Read this while listening to "Too Far Gone" by My Dad Is Dead and watching Wheelman directed by Directed by Jeremy Rush.

Where the Body Was by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips. First published by Image Comics in 2023.

Where the Body Was opens with a map of Pelican Road in 1984. Houses are numbered with a legend in the right bottom corner corresponding each number to a location: the 7-11; the homeless man, Ranko’s tent; the treehouse; the boarding house; and where the body was. The title asks a question answered on the first page. The second page has a cast of characters. Nine characters laid out in a grid. One of the nine is the body, but we don’t know which.

The story takes place over one summer in a small neighborhood. Each of the nine characters listed on the second page live in the neighborhood. Each chapter changes perspective. The first chapter is narrated by Mrs. Wilson, “the neighborhood watch.” She’s an elderly lady who sits outside with binoculars and keeps an eye on everyone’s business. There’s an old boarding house that used to belong to a wealthy family but now is rented out to degenerates. One degenerate, Sid, starts beating up on his girlfriend, Karina, and their roommate/friend, Tommy. Palmer, the man who lives next to the boarding house comes over, flashes a police badge and scares Sid away.

Palmer isn’t a cop. His dad was. Like every dad in an Ed Brubaker comic, Palmer’s dad was abusive. After his dad’s death Palmer steals his badge and starts pretending to be a cop. Now people fear and respect him. Palmer is sleeping with his neighbor Toni. Toni is married to Dr. Ted Melville. Dr. Ted is a psychiatrist. He treats Ranko, a homeless veteran with PTSD. Dr. Ted is giving Ranko medication he doesn’t need to make Ranko unstable. Dr. Ted wants to kill his wife and frame Ranko. Medication is part of the frame.

Ranko is friends with Lila, a young girl who rollerblades around the neighborhood pretending to be a superhero. Much like Mrs. Wilson she is aware of everyone else’s business. Lila is infatuated with Tommy. She is sad to find out that Tommy and Karina are burglarizing houses. Tommy is in love with Karina. Karina is in love with Tommy but keeps him at a distance. Karina is a runaway. Her parents hire a private investigator to find her. The private investigator is the body.

The PI climbs scaffolding to peek in a window to see if Karina is inside. He falls off the scaffolding. The title suggests a crime that didn’t happen. A crime almost happens. Palmer is in Toni’s house. They’re having sex. Tommy and Karina are hiding in the bedroom closet because they were robbing the house when Palmer and Toni arrived. Dr. Ted comes into the room to catch his wife cheating and kill her. Ranko comes into the house and stops Dr. Ted. Lila had already called the police because she saw Tommy and Karina break into the house. As Lila says, “It was a crazy mess.”

Where the Body Was is most interesting in relation to other Brubaker/Phillips books. For the first time there are multiple female characters. No femme fatales. The roving narrators make it hard to pin down exactly who the story belongs to. Ostensibly Lila, but maybe the neighborhood as a whole and not an individual. The narrators break the fourth wall. They speak directly to the reader. When they break the fourth wall they are often talking from years in the future. Reflecting back on the events. Distinguishing between what they thought and felt back then and what they think and feel now. It’s a weird conceit that doesn’t always flow but it's also one of the only books where they really mix things up. I can't complain.

The setting isn't a world of crime. It's a recognizable type of neighborhood. Not everyone is a criminal. Not everyone is an abused loner. Some are, but not all. Suburban crime recalls the Archie Comics style Criminal story, but better. Widening the pool of narrators, offering different perspectives prevents the book from being so claustrophobic and nihilistic. The story is less gripping. It's not Phillips best art, but the formal and narrative changes make it a compelling book.

Read this while listening to "Hey Suburbia" by Screeching Weasel and watching The Myth of the American Sleepover directed by David Robert Mitchell.

House of the Unholy by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips. First published by Image Comics in 2024.

A book about the Satanic Panic. As a small child Natalie Burns was part of the "Satanic Six" a group of six kids that claimed ritual abuse. They were taken to underground tunnels and forced to have sex with demons. The kids were lying. By the time it was clear the kids were lying lives were ruined. A teacher accused of ritually abusing the children ended her own life. The kids became pariahs. Lying about being traumatized became its own trauma.

As an adult Natalie Burns helps finds runaways who have joined cults. She helps deprogram and return them to their families. She's a loner. She wants to use her bad experiences to help prevent other young people from having similar bad experiences. Noble enough, but she's undeniably still fucked up. After one job goes bad she's approached by Agent West from the FBI. The Satanic Six are being murdered one by one. West both wants to protect Natalie and get her help in tracking down the remaining Satan Six.

Natalie and West find Kim Denby. Kim was a member of the Satanic Six. Unlike Natalie she's successfully moved on. Got her life together. They find her at her suburban home. As Kim is leading them inside Natalie realizes the woman they are following isn't Kim. An impersonator. The real Kim is already dead. Natalie is knocked out. She wakes up tied to a chair in a basement. In another room she can hear Agent West being tortured. Somehow West gets away. Frees Natalie. The torturing folks carved a weird symbol into West's chest. Natalie recognizes the symbol. Her brother, Brendan, spends all his time online believing conspiracy theories. Brendan has a tattoo of the symbol. Natalie goes to Brendan for help.

Blake Snyder was the leader of the Satanic Six. He started the rumor and convinced the other kids to go along with it. Some of the kids started really believing it. Blake Snyder really believes the underground tunnels of his hometown are a gateway into hell. Blake wants to commune with demons. Blake believes that Natalie is part of the portal. He needs her in the tunnels for a ritual sacrifice to open the gates and let the demons into the world. Agent West and Natalie's brother believe Blake Snyder. Agent West has been lying Natalie. Tricking her. Leading her to her brother. West and Brendan chloroform Natalie. They tie her up and take her to the tunnel. Blake reveals his secret plan. Someone makes a mistake. Slips. TNT detonates and Natalie escapes with her brother. Brendan dies while Natalie hides in a cabin.

The story alternates between present day and flashbacks. The flashbacks are confined to the end of each chapter. The flashbacks are formatted like Chick Tracts. Many times inside and outside of this newsletter I've complained about flashbacks. At least Phillips does something interesting with them. I used to have a Chick Tract about how playing Dungeons and Dragons will turn you into a witch and make you kill yourself. I wish the art for the flashbacks was more in the style of Jack Chick. In The Last of the Innocent Sean Phillips switches between his own art style and the style of Archie Comics, so there's precedent. So many Brubaker and Phillips comics use oranges and reds for flashbacks. Houses of the Unholy isn't different. I wish it was. Formatting the flashbacks like Chick Tracts, imitating Jack Chick's art style, and employing black and white would have made these satanic flashbacks actually feel like Chick Tracts. Instead it's just a wink and a nod.

Brubaker always employs the same elements, drawing on the same things. A traumatized loner with an abusive past gets caught up in crime and conspiracy. Heists, the supernatural, double crossing, and death. Again and again and again. More and more the onus is on Sean Phillips to make sure these books aren't all the same. I wish he'd done a bit more.

Brubaker doesn't subvert Jack Chick or anything. Without being evangelical Brubaker's characters confuse reality with make believe--a real-life concern of parents who's kids played D&D. Their confusion results in murders and ritual sacrifices, which is exactly what Jack Chick wants us to believe. The difference is Jack Chick's characters are saved by Jesus. There is no savior in Houses of the Unholy. Natalie believes police will find her and blame her for every murder. Ostensibly police are supposed to save her, but instead she'll go to jail. Natalie's whole world is an unholy house. Tragedy after tragedy. Trauma after trauma. No god. No justice. The world is nothing but murder, loss, loneliness, and prison.

Read this while listening to War All the Time by Poison Idea and watching the third season of True Detective.