Monday, March 02, 2020

Criminal: Bad Night by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips

(pb; 2015: fourth graphic novel in the Criminal series, collecting Criminal Volume Two issues 4-7)

From the back cover

“Years ago, Jacob Kurtz was a happy family man, long-retired from the life of crime he was raised in. Then the police made him the prime suspect in a horrible crime and ripped his world apart. Now Jacob is less than a shadow of his former self, an insomniac who roams the city at night. Until one bad night he walks into the wrong place at the right time, and starts tumbling down a twisted path from wild sex to kidnapping, robbery and murder.”


Review

Kurtz, the creator of the Gazette-published comic strip Frank Kafka P.I. (seen in at least one previous Criminal graphic novel), is haunted by the past─which is still patiently stalking him. Bad is another excellent, nails-it deeper-into-the-Criminal-verse work, with its new character slant: it has all the sleaze, violence, f##ked-upness, corruption and sex of earlier Criminal entries, making this a graphic novel worth owning. Followed by Criminal: The Sinners.

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