Written by: Jonathon Hickman
Art by: Tomm Coker & Michael Garland
Published by: Image Comics
Look, I know that this review is probably coming pretty late. That’s my fault; I’ll own it. I considered not even bothering. But then I read the first issue of The Black Monday Murders, and I had write something about it. In that sense, it’s reminiscent of a lot of debut issues that have come out this year. And, like may of those issues, it’s something I want to write about because of how it differentiates itself from everything else being published right now.
On the surface, BMM #1 is a crime story. There are plenty of those out there, of course, but what makes it special is the twist on it. Of course, it’s supernatural in nature, but the boom is also heavily rooted in the economic culture of the modern world. As an Econ nerd, that on its own makes me happy. It avoids the complex jargon and such, but its mere presence is enough for the book to get its hooks in me.
It’s also a socially relevant topic, and Johnathon Hickman makes handling that look easy. There’s a layer of social commentary here, but it’s very much a subtext. Hickman never beats the reader over the head with his message, and that’s nice. It’s really only there if you want to look for it, but I hope that the nods to the culture of stock market executives remains in place.
I do want to mention the fact that this book actually isn’t exclusively a comic. It jumps between mediums a little bit, and normally, that’s enough to lose me. But hear, the transitions to prose feels natural and serves to build out the world. It’s a bummer in the sense that I don’t get to look at the work Tomm Coker and Michael Garland are doing, of course, but I did enjoy the bits that weren’t exactly comics.
For as much as I love Coker and Garland’s pencils and colors, I wouldn’t say that the art is particularly pretty. It never looks bad, but in terms of being aesthetically pleasing, it’s not breaking any records. I’m sure that’s intentional–the duo are building an aesthetic, and it’s working. In fact, I find it more impressive when an art team can build a cool aesthetic that fits the book without having the best looking art than when the art just looks good. Visually, I’m all about this book.
It certainly helps that Hickman–a traditionally wordy writer–reigns it in a bit. The issue is very dialogue focused, but it’s also 50 pages, so no single page feels cluttered with dialogue. I don’t know if every issue will be this long, but having the first issue run longer than normal is a good fix to traditional problems I have with debut issues. Longer issues give the creative team more space to do their thing, and that almost always results in the book getting its hooks in better.
I briefly mentioned dialogue in the last paragraph, so I should probably actually talk about it. In short, it’s very good. I’m not sure I like any of the main cast, but there’s potential for me to like them in the future. In the meantime, they’re all really well written, engaging characters. Despite kind of not liking them, I want to read more of them because they have interesting dynamic with one another.
The Black Monday Murders is a series I’m really looking forward to more of. Hickman, Coker, and Garland all knock it out of the park (excuse the cliche) in this issue. They get just about everything right, and I don’t really have any fully formed complaints. And that’s after reading it through three times. I may give it another go before I talk about it on Comics Dash this week, so maybe then I’ll have something to whine about. But really, I predict that it’s just going to be myself and my co-hosts gushing about it. Seriously, this book is one to get on board with now.
