Category: noir

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Fatale: Death Chases Me

Fatale: Death Chases Me, written by Ed Brubaker with art by Sean Phillips, is a mash-up of noir and the supernatural. Think True Detective or Twin Peaks, although Fatale takes place in San Francisco and not the boonies. When I read this years ago, I didn’t like it quite as much as I did this time around. I didn’t understand that Jo is the main character, while also being the monster.

Let’s talk about Jo/Josephine, shall we? She doesn’t age and can enslave men to her will. She’s beautiful, sure, but there’s more to it than that. When she tells a man to put a gun to his head and pull the trigger, he does it without blinking. Jo doesn’t want this ability, nor can she control it. She thinks eye contact might be part of it, which makes sense. Jo can literally ruin lives at a glance.

Fatale takes place in the 1950’s in San Francisco, where Jo is being pursued by a group of cultists wearing red pjs. They are led by – I don’t know what it is. It seems urbane, if you can call a creature from Hell urbane. Whatever it is, it wants Jo. The cop she counted on for protection is now hopelessly corrupt, dying of cancer, and desperate enough to use her as a bargaining chip.

Many of the things Jo does are dicey. Witness the reporter who leaves his pregnant wife to do her bidding. When they have sex, she’s on top – this is a great character moment because the creators don’t make a big deal about it. He is her slave, and will do whatever she wants. There are consequences, because with Jo there are always consequences. The reporter’s pregnant wife is slain by the cult, and what happens to their unborn baby is even worse.

Jo isn’t a good person or a bad person. She is a survivor. She does what she has to, and leaves behind a trail of shattered men and broken marriages in her wake. Her so-called powers are a curse. She has transcended morality. She is what she is, the most beautiful monster you will ever see.

There are a lot of characters in Fatale. At first, I got a few of them confused. That is this graphic novel’s only weakness, if you can call it that – this is a series that rewards multiple reads. The ending leaves behind a few unresolved plot threads, but that’s okay as this is only the first arc of the series.

IMO, Fatale is the best thing Ed Brubaker has ever written. It is complemented by Sean Phillips’s gritty artwork, which features muted colors, lots of shadows, and eye-gouging monstrosities. Recommended for lovers of noir, supernatural comics, and monsters.

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Scalped: Book One

This is a review of Scalped: Book One by Jason Aaron and P.M. Guera. Dashiell Bad Horse is an undercover FBI agent. His mission: take down Lincoln Red Crow, who runs the reservation where he was born. Dash gets into it with Red Crow’s thugs; this is an audition of sorts, and it works. Red Crow is impressed, and takes Dash into his employment. First, he tells Bad Horse about what it was like having sex with his mother. I couldn’t figure out why he’d say something like that, and then realized that this is Red Crow’s way of making small talk. It’s also his way of saying, ‘I own your ass.’

Soon Bad Horse is a cop, busting meth houses, spying on his ex-girlfriend and beating up her boyfriends (she call them fuck buddies, but never mind), and providing security for the soon-to-be opened casino. His single encounter with his mother, who is an activist, does not go well. Conditions at the reservation are depicted as being awful. I do not know how accurate this depiction is. I will say that this book contains multiple triggers – blood, swearing, racial epithets, blood, partial nudity, drug use, blood, gunfights, fistfights, sex, murder, lots and lots of blood. If this offends you, do not read this. I guarantee you will get upset.

Scalped is a well-done graphic novel that reads like an action movie and blends two genres – noir and Westerns. P.M. Guera’s gritty art captures the spirit of the book. Mr. Aaron’s approach is blunt, but there’s lots of stuff going on beneath the surface. Everyone has an agenda, and nobody is exactly who they seem to be.

One can debate whether this is the creators’ story to tell. In this case, I am not the person to ask, but I do feel like I have something to contribute to the discussion. I have genuine OCD. I’m not ‘a little OCD,’ I am diagnosed and it’s really messed with my life. When I see fiction about OCD, my first thought is whether the author has OCD. if the author does have OCD, more power to them! If not, things become murky.

My own viewpoint – I’m speaking for myself here, as I am no gatekeeper – is that if you are writing about OCD and you don’t have it, do your homework and get it right. Otherwise, you will be misrepresenting a devastating mental illness, and perhaps indirectly hurting the people who have it. In fact, there are folks who will get mad even if you do your homework and get it right. That’s because you are profiting off something that has made many lives miserable.

If you are shocked that people might feel this way, whether it be about OCD or daily life on an Indian reservation, think of it this way. What if someone you didn’t know made a movie using the details of your life without your permission, made a million dollars, got some of the details wrong, and then told you they were doing you a favor by raising the public’s awareness of you?

Would you thank them, or sue them?