Fatale

Perhaps I was expecting too much.

I mean Ed Brubaker writing a noir comic, with art by Sean Phillips. That's a pretty strong combination. And on top of that I've seen some rave reviews for the series. So I did have very high expectations. And it's not that it's bad, but I just didn't seem to connect with it.

And the artwork easily lived up to my anticipation Sean Phillips is a seasoned artist and he's worked with Brubaker several times before. His art is ideal suited to the noir influenced stories that Brubaker writes.

The plot is good too. The mystery is well developed and I like the mixture of Cthulhu tinged horror with classic noir settings.

The characters are where it falls down for me though. I just don't care about any of them. In the case of the Josephine. She is essentially created to be the archetypal Femme Fatale and that pretty much is her character at least in this first volume.

But I can't really connect with the other characters either. Things happen to them. And I'm being told how it affects them, but I don't really feel it. Maybe it's the dry narration. Maybe it's the shifting between time periods. But it doesn't properly convey the power that Jo has over men.

People are suffering in the way that you would expect in a noir story, but it's not presented in a way that makes me empathize with their situation.

It's not bad, but Brubaker has written better.

The story begins simply enough. A man attends the funeral of his reclusive godfather. After the funeral, he meets a beautiful mysterious woman named Jo. Jo saves his life, and he finds himself enmeshed in a decades long conflict that is clearly out of his league.

Brubaker uses flashbacks to tease out the backstory on Jo, Hank (the godfather), and this conflict. Slowly as the story progresses, we discover that the noir story becomes one of Lovecraftian horror instead.

Brubaker is widely acknowledged as a writer who is very skilled in the tropes of noir. That all comes to play here. The storyline is a classic, on par with James M Cain et al. What is perhaps surprising is his deft touch at the horror elements. While in this first installment the horror tropes are secondary to the noir, he works the horrific elements into the solid foundation of his everyday world.

Likewise Sean Phillips does an excellent job handling the art duties. The preponderance of the book look & feel appropriate for a hardboiled tale, yet he handles the creepy Lovecraftian horrors protruding into this world easily. The contrast makes the emerging horrific elements even more striking.

Since the overall story is as yet unfinished, it’s impossible to fully judge the plotting or storytelling. However, this first installment is compelling & leaves me eagerly awaiting the next volume.