The Last Days of American Crime, by Rick Remender and Greg Tocchini
2009, Image collection 2017
Sometimes you get it in your head that you like a writer, and it takes a number of books to realize you don't like them that much.
 |
| It's a good cover |
I first read Remender's work with his X-Force run way back when, and I liked it a lot. Since then, he's been a writer I liked, but I don't think I've loved his work since then. I've written about Fear Agent here, which was fun, but not incredible, but I've had similar experiences with Tokyo Ghost, Deadly Class, and I don't remember what else. Up to now, Low has been my favorite work by him, which shares the same artist as this, Greg Tocchini. |
| The skin tones are bold enough to support the sketchy linework |
I like Sean Murphy and Wes Craig's art a lot. Sean Murphy single-handedly made Tokyo Ghost a marvel to read. But Greg Tocchini does something which really hits me in a way most genre artists don't: I love his lighting. The layouts are fine, the character designs are fine, but he's so adept at taking the lighting of a room and getting the flesh colors just right, the shadows just right, and building up an atmosphere. I have to wonder what Low would be if he weren't illustrating it.
 |
| Tocchini is quite good at doing a sensual brush stroke |
Here, he's applying his skills to crime rather than sci-fi. Going in, I thought it might be a noir, and in construction it is, but so much of the book is drenched in light that it loses that vibe. The book has a distinctly California feel from the motels, the blue skies, the sunsets, and the multicultural racism.
 |
| The vision of police swarming American cities is less and less far-fetched everyday |
The book collects three oversized issues to make up a single story. A ex-con hooks up with a pathological couple to complete a heist on the final day of American crime. The overarching shadow over the story is that crime is rampant, and the government will begin broadcasting a signal that will psychologically prevent people from breaking the law. The heist will happen on the eve of the broadcast.  |
| These are Bad Dudes |
As a story, there isn't that much there. The ex-con meets the couple, they get ready, then they do the heist, with an ultra-violent interlude in the second issue. I don't mind that overall; plots tend to disappoint the more they are relied on. The first issue of this was the most enjoyable for me. The ex-con, Graham, is established as someone barely keeping his nose clean, and with scores he wants to settle. The femme fatale of the story, Shelby, is less mysterious than in your typical noir: right up front you see that she is playing all sides and is a main character rather than someone who pops in and out to tempt the lead. She has all but given up on humanity, and Graham's bottomline decency affects her. Sure, Graham will sleep with her in an instant, but he also won't let her get beat up and raped. That's decency in this world. |
| Again, Tocchini's killing it with the lighting |
That might not sound like much, but they are clearly characterized, and not stock stereotypes. The third in the heist, Kevin, is much more of a stock character, and one that Remender seems compelled to put into all his work: the psychopath. He had a rich, scumbag daddy, and now Kevin is a rich, scumbag young man. That's the first major strike I have against Remender's writing, that he wants to write like it's mature, but he also wants a black-and-white plainly evil character in his books. It's a very Quentin-Tarantino school of plot design. And I'm not against the psychopath archetype, just not in every book, as it seems to be with Remender's creator-owned work (I don't recall a psychopath in X-Force, but it's been a while).
 |
| This is a Robocop 2-level of urban decay |
The second issue is the weak point for me. It feels like filler. It tries to be splashy, but it was trying too hard for my tastes. Graham goes up against a Latino gang, with lots of racism, rape, and car chases. I'll compare it here to Brubaker and Philips' Criminal or Lapham's Stray Bullets, where they would have the same thing, but it's upsetting and stressful. Here, it's much more of a "Fuck yeah!" version of racism, rape, and car chases. I enjoy crime books where the guns and exploding heads are horrifying much more than where it's awesome. I can enjoy exploding heads in a book which is going for over the top, but that's not the tone of the first issue. I guess the problem for me was that the tone was inconsistent. It shifted between a moody, atmospheric crime story and a bombastic violent farce.
 |
| Everybody hates everybody |
In the end, they do the heist, many more people die, and the book ends. The sci-fi idea of the mind-altering broadcast is barely touched on, though it comes in at the end to tie up the story. It's a shame, because other than a talking head on TV at the start, the book never really considers what that would do to a society. There would be no crime, but people would lose the choice to be good, like with the Ludovico Technique in A Clockwork Orange. Only here, people would be reliant on the law to decide what is acceptable. Lawmakers could abuse this by rewriting the laws and the populace would be helpless. Normalcy and patriotism could effectively be made law. There were a lot of ideas just left on the table here.
 |
| This was the point I dropped out. It wasn't exciting, it killed the mood that had been building |
Overall, I liked this for the art. The story was fine, but not exceptional. The art carried it. That seems to be a common thread for creator-owned work these days. Produce a competent story with a few conceptual hooks behind it, and get one of the many super-talented working artists to illustrate it and share copyright for it. Nothing exceptional.
Remender and Tocchini got this made into a Netflix movie last year and got paid, and that alone would make it worth their time to produce this.
No comments:
Post a Comment