Daily Breakdowns 034 - Stumptown

A note before I get to the review. Maybe it goes without saying, but this Alan Moore Month project is obviously going to impact this column. I should be able to get at least one a week done, but by and large, I'm reading and reviewing Moore graphic novels, and that's not the kind of work you can just knock out. One thing most people can agree on is that most all of Moore's works are about something. That is, something other than the plot. There are themes, layers of social commentary, and let's not forget all the formal experiments and games and references to other artists and movements.

So, as a break, and 'cuz new comics came out today, I wanted to read a comic about bad guys and a private detective and a missing person, and I'm pretty sure there's no deeper meaning.



Stumptown #1
Written by Greg Rucka
Art by Matthew Southworth
Published by Oni Press. $3.99 USD

**SPOILER ALERT - THIS IS A POSITIVE REVIEW IN WHICH I AM STILL KIND OF A DICK**

I can't recall the last time I read an Oni comic. They just seem to have lost me when they stopped doing cool stuff like The Marquis and Blue Monday. They became like a small market baseball team with reduced salary. And at some point I had enough of Rucka's Queen and Country and came to feel it was actually kind of misogynistic and cliched. I think it was Tara Chace drinking a bottle of vodka in the shower and crying. Just real melodramatic shit. I thought he lost the plot there, and in DC work like his portion of 52 it was clear to me he'd completely forgotten how to write Renee Montoya sympathetically and realistically. I haven't read his Batwoman storyline in Detective Comics or anything else he's done in the past few years. He's been persona non grata for me.

So why now? Why get a Rucka first issue?

Well, I have a deeply held belief that artists you like can fail but it doesn't mean they've lost it forever. In fact, I think all good artists have to disappoint their fans at some point. It's the law of averages, it's pursuing other creative avenues, it's life interfering with art, and sometimes it's just the fan who changes.

Also, I like The Rockford Files, and Rucka's been saying this series is kind of his love letter to the series and other TV detective series like Simon & Simon and Magnum, P.I.. So, good marketing there, Rucka.

The series has almost nothing in common with any of those, which, probably due in part to TV budgets of the '70s and '80s, relied on the easygoing, masculine charm of hairy-chested James Garner, Tom Selleck, and Gerald McRaney. No, this is a typical Rucka heroine: fucked-up (she's got a gambling problem and is heavily in debt), gay, and attractive but not overly so. You know, if I was Rucka's editor, I would have said, "Greg, how about taking a leap here and giving us a brassy, tarted up, big-breasted blonde who's overly neat except when she has a mouthful of dude?" (I would've said it in editorese, though). At least give me a heroine who brushes her hair and puts lipstick on once in a while, who favors bright colors and tailoring, and who's maybe in a relationship with a loser, but not an abusive loser--maybe she's the alpha in the relationship and she's dissatisfied because he doesn't stick up for himself when she berates him. Something different, you know? Who knows, maybe a male p.i., who's skinny and jogs a lot and wears Adidas all the time.

But yeah, instead of that, we have another Ruckette named Dex (short for Dexedrine, which I have a hard time believing is worth explainign in a later issue) Parios, a cocky but mousy-looking brunette next door who somehow has a private investigating business when she's not blowing her money at the craps table. She runs up such a tab with a Native American casino (because casinos really let you do that) that the manager coerces her into searching for her missing granddaughter, in exchange for clearing her tab. I want to get back to that scene in a moment, but first, I have to commend Southworth for a terrific opener, which is basically the end, time-wise, of the events of the first issue. He ends that scene with a wonderful, still, chilling spread of a shooting by a bridge in the St. Johns neighborhood of Portland, OR. He slows down time with not only staccato shots of the victim being thrown back, but a wonderful arc of tiny inset shots of a Canadian geese's flight. A really artful touch.

But back to the scene after that. It works fine, don't get me wrong. But again, I kind of wanted something more than just a slight, modern variation on Chandler. Did the casino manager have to be so emotionless and businesslike? Wouldn't it have been a little more interesting if she went against type somewhat? Maybe she gets a little teary because this granddaughter is special to her in some way, or hey, maybe all her granddaughters are really special to her and despite her position she puts family first.

I understand that Jim Rockford was basically a '70s Philip Marlowe who worked out of a trailer instead of an office, so yeah, the Chandlerisms in the story are probably intentional. That doesn't mean Rucka couldn't shake them up a little. Couldn't the thugs trying to scare off Dex be a little quirkier instead of just ugly? And what's with the rich gangster who tries to buy her off? How did he know Dex was gay and why is he sort of offering his daughter to her? That scene was kind of different, I'll give him that. And sure, kudos for giving Dex a brother with Down's Syndrome, because as in most media, we don't see enough of them because it makes shallow people uncomfortable. Still, I'm not quite buying Dex as a great sister--she just lets him play video games whenever he wants and apparently he has to fend for himself most of the time.

As far as Southworth, damn, the guy's good. And the outside and inside cover designs are strong, and he's even given a page in the back to talk about his process, which I found a pretty nice change of pace from the writer always getting to blab on. So with his own talent and the addition of Southworth writing that page: instant fan. Like him. And it sure doesn't hurt that Lee Loughridge is coloring the thing. But, and there's always a but in this review, I guess, isn't it a little odd Rucka would use an artist so much in line, stylistically, with Michael Lark and Sean Phillips, who are now so associated with Rucka's former Gotham Central cohort, Ed Brubaker? Don't get me wrong; I think Southworth's a real find, and no doubt the best choice Rucka could come up with, but at the same time, do all crime comics have to look like this now?

Bottom line, and trying to not be so cranky here, this is a pretty good debut. The art's excellent and while I can't say I found the story particularly original at this point, nor the characters that memorable, it's definitely entertaining and evocative. I do want to see how it develops, and hope that Rucka does more than just put vague characters through the motions. I want it to dig a little deeper, do more with the Portland setting, and get a little weirder and more personal.

Christopher Allen