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Review: Criminal - The Dead and the Dying
Criminal Vol. 3: The Dead and the Dying TPB
Written by Ed Brubaker
Art by Sean Phillips
Published by Marvel Comics. $11.99 USD
Some people think that critics derive great pleasure from being negative, from tearing up an author and their work, and that may be true of some. Aside from getting a chuckle at a well-turned snarky phrase, I really don't get that pleasure, but I will admit that the negative review is a lot easier to write than the wholly positive review. And that brings me to this latest Criminal edition, which I can't do anything but praise. This is my favorite comics series currently being published, Ed Brubaker one of my favorite contemporary writers, and Sean Phillips one of my favorite contemporary artists. And they, and the series, is just getting better.
This short arc of three stories is set in 1972 and is a variation on Rashomon storytelling--each story is told from a different character's point of view and self-contained, but they all concern some of the same people and events, like a youngish crime boss, his ruined and treacherous girlfriend, and a big score. In the first story, we meet the crime boss' old friend, who gave up the girl to her in his past and regrets the effect it had on her life. Next we meet the scion of the Lawless family seen in previous volumes, the violent, rudderless Vietnam vet Teeg Lawless, who needs to make a big score fast and alters (or ends) several lives to make up for his mistake, and finally we meet the girl, Danica, wounded but tough, with just a sliver of tenderness left, and it's no match for her vengeful and self-destructive impulses. Phillips sets the early '70s scene perfectly, with wonderful pulp paperback-style covers as good as anything he's done. And while Jake the boxer may be the most purely good character in this world, Brubaker is able to find the humanity in even the monstrous Teeg, and a large amount of poetry amid the brutality. There is a feeling that Jake, Danica and Teeg are all living on borrowed time, dead inside to varying degrees, and yet it doesn't make one care any less about what happens to them.
Written by Ed Brubaker
Art by Sean Phillips
Published by Marvel Comics. $11.99 USD
Some people think that critics derive great pleasure from being negative, from tearing up an author and their work, and that may be true of some. Aside from getting a chuckle at a well-turned snarky phrase, I really don't get that pleasure, but I will admit that the negative review is a lot easier to write than the wholly positive review. And that brings me to this latest Criminal edition, which I can't do anything but praise. This is my favorite comics series currently being published, Ed Brubaker one of my favorite contemporary writers, and Sean Phillips one of my favorite contemporary artists. And they, and the series, is just getting better.
This short arc of three stories is set in 1972 and is a variation on Rashomon storytelling--each story is told from a different character's point of view and self-contained, but they all concern some of the same people and events, like a youngish crime boss, his ruined and treacherous girlfriend, and a big score. In the first story, we meet the crime boss' old friend, who gave up the girl to her in his past and regrets the effect it had on her life. Next we meet the scion of the Lawless family seen in previous volumes, the violent, rudderless Vietnam vet Teeg Lawless, who needs to make a big score fast and alters (or ends) several lives to make up for his mistake, and finally we meet the girl, Danica, wounded but tough, with just a sliver of tenderness left, and it's no match for her vengeful and self-destructive impulses. Phillips sets the early '70s scene perfectly, with wonderful pulp paperback-style covers as good as anything he's done. And while Jake the boxer may be the most purely good character in this world, Brubaker is able to find the humanity in even the monstrous Teeg, and a large amount of poetry amid the brutality. There is a feeling that Jake, Danica and Teeg are all living on borrowed time, dead inside to varying degrees, and yet it doesn't make one care any less about what happens to them.
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