As a long term fan of both Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips I’m always keen to read and see more of their work.
A boarding house full of druggies. A neglected housewife. A young girl who thinks shes a superhero. A cop who wants to be left alone. And a private detective looking for a runaway girl. These stories collide one fateful summer in WHERE THE BODY WAS, a tale of love and murder in the suburbs, told from a dozen different points of view. All the neighbors on the block have an opinion about the murder and how it happened, but which of them is telling the truth?
I’ve loved Brubaker since his days at DC & Marvel and his Daredevil and Captain America runs are legendary but it’s his work on Gotham Central that captured my imagination, I even own some original artwork from that run.
In recent years Brubaker has started to work with Sean Phillips almost exclusively and between them they have created a real line in Noirish graphic novels. As a big fan I think I have everything they’ve done and quite a few books with sketches by Phillips. So it’s fair to say I was looking forward to this!
The book feels both familiar as their partnership has a strong visual style but it also feels slightly different. There is something about their partnership which always gives a vibe of high quality TV miniseries.
I enjoyed the flashback nature of the story and how it unfolded, Brubaker does a nice line in exaggerated realism and it works for this. It was maybe a little more explicit than some of their stuff but it didn’t bother me too much.
It did feel different to their other works like Criminal or Fatale but it had a similar dark sense of humour and often unlikeable characters.
It might not be for everyone but if you’ve enjoyed their past work you’ll probably really like it!
A dark, funny and nourish story set in the 80’s with Phillips excellent, stylistic art – give it a shot!