by Justin Gray & Lee Ferguson
original graphic novel
the premise: An enigmatic young woman hires the equally enigmatic Mr. Keen to locate the man who prostituted her sister - so that she can murder him.
the lowdown: Man, I waited for this book for like forever. Originally it was supposed to come out in 2005. It got resolicited several times, and now here we are in 2009 and it's finally out.
I'm not sure anything could really live up to that kind of wait, and maybe that colored my perceptions. This is a nice effort at a dark crime story slash psychological thriller that ultimately doesn't quite work.
The high concept is a pretty good one, but the titular character really doesn't have much of a personality beyond "resident bad-ass". I guess that's okay in the abstract, but given the page limitations there's really only one character in the book who's fleshed out much - above-said enigmatic woman - and she's not really all that likeable. So who is the reader left to root for here? Presumably Mr. Keen, but he's a total mercenary, and one never really has the sense that he's emotionally invested in the things going on.
The art by Ferguson has a nice grainy quality to it that looks appealing in black & white, but his storytelling is vague in places, to the point that it makes the story unnecessarily confusing. A few of the key moments don't really resonate at all, and the murky storytelling is unfortunately part of the problem.
A book like this really has to get by on attitude. It can do that if it just projects "hard core" on every page - but this one doesn't quite get there. I'm not left wanting to read more about Mr. Keen or even feeling that he's had a proper character arc. If this was a pilot for a series I *might* be interested enough to move on to the next episode, but as a standalone work I'm just not hooked.
the verdict: A very nice effort with a very nice concept, but unfortunately it just doesn't quite work.
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