The Creep #0
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Writer: John Arcudi
Artist: Jonathan Case
Cover: Frank Miller
Let me start off by saying I had no idea what The Creep was until I walked into my comic shop this Wednesday. Like any other Wednesday, I browsed about the store before having to clock in, and when I turned my attention to the wall of new books, I saw it. Sitting there in all of its Frank Miller-noir glory, it stuck out like a sore thumb. I was immediately attracted to the book, and my hands seemed to hover upwards towards it, as if caught in an inescapable tractor beam of awesome. As my hands gently picked up the book, I looked at the Sin City-infused cover, inhaling every one of Frank Miller’s beautiful scratchy lines. This was something special. I knew I had found my spontaneous buy for the day.
Dark Horse has a way of putting out cool books that just fly under the radar, and this book definitely flew under mine. John Arcudi, who I’ve been familiar with from some of the Hellboy universe titles, has come up with an unapologetic neo-noir tale. I was surprised to see just how straight forward and realistic it was after reading, not to a fault mind you. Sometimes as a comic book fan you forget that there’s more out there than tales driven by sci-fi and fantasy. As the #0 would suggest, there is more to come, as this was just a precursor to an upcoming mini-series, but so far it seems to be a noir tale, that has no issue being just that, and that alone. There’s a detective, and there’s a case to be solved. Simple as that, and by God, Arcudi is doing the genre justice.
The only fault I’d say I found with the book is the art. Jonathan Case’s style doesn’t particularly fit with Arcudi’s neo-noir mystery. When I read a book like this, I want shadows, I want subtlety, but Case’s style is a little less mysterious than I would have hoped for. It’s a bit of a dick tease having such a rich Frank Miller cover like that, and then opening it up to find something that at first glance doesn’t scream “alleyways” and “private eyes.”
That being said, I’ll give this book a solid 7 out of 10 stars, it’s a great prologue, but that’s all it is. All I know is that I will absolutely be checking out this mini-series.
Boyblunder
grady@comicattack.net
