The Creep #4

Written by John Arcudi
Art by Jonathan Case

There aren't a lot of comics like The Creep being published today - comics that are quiet and explore inner depths, books that are anti-hipsterish, but also avoid the most basic tropes of the genres they are set within.

The Creep has been about a PI named Oxel, who suffers from some genetic disorder that has made him grow to an unnatural size, and suffer from a number of side effects.  His old college girlfriend got in touch with him to investigate why her son committed suicide; she has been unable to let go of her child, and wants to understand what happened to him.  Oxel's investigation rips the bandage off for many people though, including the mother of the boy's best friend (who killed himself months before), and for the woman's father, who used to take both boys hunting.

For much of the series, it looked like Arcudi was setting this up along the familiar, Andrew Vachss-style lines of there being some sort of molestation, but I'm pleased to see, in this issue, that this was all a red herring, or something that existed only in Oxel's mind.  The truth, as shown here in a flashback, is much stranger (and likely to stick with me) than anything I could have expected.

Arcudi is a very good character writer, and Jonathan Case is more than up for the job of portraying the subtlety he works into his scripts.  This story will read great in a trade; if you haven't been following it, give it a try.

The Creep #2

Written by John Arcudi
Art by Jonathan Case

On the surface, this comic seems pretty strange.  It's about a private investigator with a growth disorder that causes him to suffer all sorts of physical problems, who is investigating the suicide of a former girlfriend's teenage son.  It's not your typical noir plot, but John Arcudi and Jonathan Case are doing some very cool things with it.

The investigator, Oxel, is a very interesting character.  He's terrified of seeing his client because she knew him before his disease set in, and he's not comfortable with her seeing what he became.  Because of that, he's focusing too much of his time on the mother of the teenager's best friend, who also committed suicide a few months beforehand.

Arcudi gives us plenty of opportunities to see how other people respond to Oxel, from the tough guys who hang out on the street corner, to the average person he comes across in his investigations.  He is aware of how his looks ease his job, but he is reluctant to discuss them with anyone, as that causes the effect to disappear.

The grandfather of the dead boy is another interesting figure.  He's homeless, and very mentally ill, having suffered a break after the boy's death.  Jonathan Case does some cool things with him, drawing his fugue states in a completely different style, that looks a lot like Toby Cypress's (I was sure that's who had drawn the first page of this issue).

In this issue, Oxel moves closer to what he is looking for, but it's still not clear just what that is.  It's becoming increasingly obvious that the boys both killed themselves over something that happened with the grandfather.  My first inclination is to see this as a comic about abuse, as if it were written by Andrew Vachss, but I suspect that Arcudi has something more subtle in mind.

The Creep #1

Written by John Arcudi
Art by Jonathan Case

The Creep is an interesting new series at Dark Horse.  Like many of their new comics, this one began as a serial in Dark Horse Presents, and then had those installments reprinted as a zero issue, before this, 'first' issue came out.  Reading those prior chapters are essential to understanding this book, which I think could be problematic for people who like to start a new series by buying the first issue...

Anyway, this comic is very good.  The titular 'creep' is Oxel, a private detective with a medical condition that has caused his body to grow to gigantic proportions, and which causes him to be wracked by headaches, uncontrollable sweating, and other discomforts.  Oxel has been contacted by a former girlfriend, who he knew only before his condition began, who wants him to look into the conditions surrounding her only son's suicide.

Curtis killed himself shortly after his only friend, Mike, killed himself.  Because of this, Curtis's grandfather, who was close with both boys, has fallen apart to the point that he is living on the streets, and Cutis's mother, Stephanie, is convinced that there was something more going on.  She sees suicide as a contagion that Curtis caught from Mike.  She's asked Oxel to look into things, and while he is, he has been avoiding contacting her.

In this issue, Oxel interviews Curtis's father, who he knew back in college, and works with the contagion theory.  Arcudi is setting the story up to suggest that there may have been more to Mike and Curtis's friendship, possibly some secret involving the grandfather as well, but he's playing it close to the vest.

Jonathan Case's art is great.  There's a cool scene towards the end of the book where he switches to a sketchier, watercoloured look when Oxel tries to imagine the boys' lives, which then continues into his own reality.  It's clear that Oxel isn't well, but to what extent his condition affects his judgement, we don't know.  This is a series worth checking out.

Dark Horse Presents #11

Written by Francesco Francavilla, Steve Horton, Carla Speed McNeil, Steve Niles, Evan Dorkin, Tim Seeley, John Arcudi, Andrew Vachss, Neal Adams, and Frank J. Barbiere
Art by Francesco Francavilla, Michael Dialynas, Carla Speed McNeil, Christopher Mitten, Evan Dorkin, Victor Drujiniu, Jonathan Case, Geof Darrow, Neal Adams, and Luke Radl

Once again, Dark Horse Presents delivers a variety of comics for your reading pleasure.  As always, it's a pretty mixed bag, with the good being discussed first:

• Francesco Francavilla is an artist I've enjoyed for quite some time, and it's nice to see him finally doing some creator-owned work.  The Black Beetle is a pretty standard pulp hero, with a Spirit/Shadow/Lobster Johnson type character trying to protect a beautiful archeologist (or curator, or something like that) from a group of personal helicopter-wearing Nazis who want to steal a priceless artifact.  It's predictable, but pretty.
• I'm always happy to get a new chapter of Finder, Carla Speed McNeil's long-running series.  She's making good use of the colour possibilities of this anthology, as she has Jaegar walk through a number of strange environments.  It's a short piece, but it's very nice.
• I don't remember John Arcudi's old series The Creep, but this reintroduction to the character works quite well, as the title character receives a letter from an old girlfriend telling him that her son committed suicide, and that she thinks there's something more to it.  This is how you begin a new story told in short chapters; I'm looking forward to reading more.  I like Jonathan Case's art here.
• Andrew Vachss's prose piece 'Pig' goes down quite easily, if it feels like it's from another era.  It's a story about a young gang-banger and the friendship he develops with an overweight kid who is not part of his clique.  Geof Darrows's illustrations are less Darrow-ish than anything I've ever seen him do, but they work with this story.
• I don't know what the deal is with 'The Way Out', a story 'From the Pages of the White Suits', which is set in Moscow in the late 80s.  It's about a young female courier who gets caught up in some madness involving gangsters and soldiers.  I don't know if this is the beginning of a new series, or is a stand-alone story, but it has my interest.  Luke Radl's art is very nice in Frank J. Barbiere's story.

Beyond that, I found I didn't have much use for the rest of the book.  Steve Niles and Christopher Mittens's Cal MacDonald story still hasn't caught my eye, and I am still having trouble getting into the Steve Horton and Michael Dialynas 'Amala's Blade' series.  Tim Seeley's new series The Occultist was too like the Cal MacDonald and a hundred other comics to impress me.

I hate Neal Adams's Blood comic, and feel much the same about anything Evan Dorkin does that doesn't involve Jill Thompson and the Beasts of Burden.  Next month:  Aliens!