160 pages
English language
Published Dec. 3, 2021 by Boom! Studios.
NO GOOD DEED GOES UNHIRED
The Eisner Award winning team of John Allison and Max Sarin return to the world of Giant Days for a new series about everyone’s favorite child detective; Charlotte Grote.
Nineteen year old Charlotte Grote has her whole life ahead of her; headed straight to Oxford and a future as a real detective—until she’s framed for murder!
Given the choice between going to jail basically forever or joining the police, Lottie decides to hit the beat, all while trying to find the real murderer. Lottie may have been running rings about the police since her 9th birthday, but she’s never been on this side of the security tape.
Could the future of law enforcement be 5’2” with an extremely strong bangs game?
Yes. Very yes.
Collects Wicked Things #1-6.
As murder mysteries go, this whodoneit left a lot to be desired… like the who. I should be used to this with comic books, but really thought this graphic novel would be self-contained. Probably just wishful thinking.
On the subject of the actual premise… it was so completely unrealistic as to be pretty distracting. Up until she was recruited by the police I was pretty into it. It just went downhill from there though.
While not as character focused as the Giant Days series, Wicked Things has the same great artwork and witty/off-beat humour. Read it for the snarky dialogue and overlook the somewhat frenetic leaps in the mystery plots to get the most out of this book.
I think this volume probably makes much more sense if you are already familiar with the Bad Machinery books, but if you're coming in cold or with only the few appearances of Lottie in Giant Days you're going to be confused. I suspect this might have worked better as a second volume, using the first to re-establish her skills and hubris before knocking her off her pedestal with the events of this book.
This having been said, I definitely enjoyed it as a long term Allison fan. Max has done a fantastic job with these characters and it feels like it would have been a worthy successor to Giant Days if it had time to find it's feet. The back half does feel a bit rushed as I guess they knew they weren't getting a second run, but I think they found a reasonable resolution with what they had to …
I think this volume probably makes much more sense if you are already familiar with the Bad Machinery books, but if you're coming in cold or with only the few appearances of Lottie in Giant Days you're going to be confused. I suspect this might have worked better as a second volume, using the first to re-establish her skills and hubris before knocking her off her pedestal with the events of this book.
This having been said, I definitely enjoyed it as a long term Allison fan. Max has done a fantastic job with these characters and it feels like it would have been a worthy successor to Giant Days if it had time to find it's feet. The back half does feel a bit rushed as I guess they knew they weren't getting a second run, but I think they found a reasonable resolution with what they had to work with. Hopefully we'll get to see the rest of the mystery that now hangs over Lottie's head some day.
