Speaking of which, there are a few Vaachs comics. "Hard
Looks" features
new originals and adaptations of Vaachs's short stories.
"Cross" is a
7-issue series based on the Cross stories in his "Bad Blood"
anthology.
Image Comics has two crime titles. "Shut Up and Die" tells a
different
self-contained crime story in each issue. The first two have
been very
good. Even better, though, is "Jinx." The title character is
a
hardboiled, female bounty hunter who is beginning to question
her career
choice while simultaneously becoming involved with a
possibly-reformed
con man (whose earlier stories have been collected in the
graphic novel
AKA Goldfish). Features very impressive, stark-contrast black
and white
artwork.
Of course, the master of the white on black background
(inheriting the
title from Will Eisner for "The Spirit") is Frank Miller in
the "Sin
City" books. In many ways his characters, male and female
alike, make
Mike Hammer and Vaachs's Burke seem like softies (although
they are just
as sentimental as those two underneath).
My favorite crime book, though, has got to be "Stray
Bullets." Like
Tarrantino, "Stray Bullets" is full of characters you would
never
actually want to meet, but are fascinating from a safe
distance. The
emphasis here is on the lives of people on the edge of the
not-at-all
glamorous, low-level criminal lifestyle.
Mark
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