The highlight of my short life to date has been shaking James Ellroy's hand. "God speed, John", he said and smiled in the devilish way that only a man who wrote a book about his panty-sniffing habit can. It was a brief few seconds in his life, but the culmination of a lifetime's desires for me.

Even before I discovered crime fiction, I was looking for its fundamentals in everything I read, from the dense narrative of William Gibson's science fiction, to the noir homages of Shane Black's action screenplays.

Before long, I realised that everything I loved was noir; the often tragic character studies of HOMICIDE: LIFE ON THE STREET; James Garner's superior performance in MARLOWE; The works of Chandler, Ellroy and Hammett. But in comics, noir is a fairly rare phenomenon. With comics' birth intertwined with that of the noir-saturated pulp novels, and the superhero genre so reliant on the crime genre standbys, it seemed a strange absence. But all it really meant was that I had to look a little harder.

SCENE OF THE CRIME: A LITTLE PIECE OF GOODNIGHT
DC Vertigo
By Ed Brubaker, Michael Lark, Sean Phillips, James Sinclair & John Constanza
US $12.95 / CAN $20.00
ISBN: 1-56389-670-2

Wearing its influences on its collar, SCENE OF THE CRIME is the pulp novel brought slap-bang into the modern-day. Jack Herriman operates a moderately successful private investigation business from above his uncle's gallery. Jack's late father was a cop, and now the man who was his partner wants Jack to find his girlfriend's sister. A seemingly simple case that skids wildly out of control, consuming Jack and forcing him to confront his dark past.

In classic noir fashion, Jack is a man consumed by his inadequacies, his addictions, and his inability to relate. The kind of man that Brubaker wrote of in A COMPLETE LOWLIFE, now finding himself all grown up yet facing the same problems. Brubaker's knack for the short-form comes to the fore as he squeezes as much story as possible into four short twenty-two page issues, making them feel like so much more.

Michael Lark's rounded, sometimes stilted figure-work is exquisite. His composition and the essential nature of his character's expressions come to the fore. It's an understated glory; everything down to the dour colouring and lettering works to this end.

SIN CITY
Dark Horse/Titan
By Frank Miller
UK £12.99
ISBN: 1-85286-468-0

SIN CITY is the very literal definition of noir; the ultimate extension of what can be done with a page. The amazing menage à trois of design aesthetic, quizzical expressionism and almost three-dimensional extraction of elements forever changed what people looked for in black & white comics.

The story deals with an average night in Basin City, as ugly bruiser Marv Marv wakes up after a night of passion with a beautiful hooker, and finds her dead. He hunts for the girl's killer while fleeing the police, who have him pegged as their chief suspect, and his quest takes him from the highest figures in 'Sin City politics to the lowliest corner-jockeys and dancing girls.

Without question, SIN CITY marks a hallmark in the artistic development of one of the industry's most important creative voices. Whilst Frank Miller's work for the mainstream proved his chops with the written word, it was with this collection of a long-running DARK HORSE PRESENTS serial that Miller showed just what he could do with pencil and ink.

Miller's work on super-hero franchises had kept the worst of his excesses at bay and forced him to focus on the craft. Left to his own devices, Miller threw everything out there, and all of it pushed to the max. If you're easily offended or prefer a more sedate pace, then this volume will shock. Though the story relies on cliché a little too often, these clichés are staples of the noir genre, and here, they work.

MISS: BETTER LIVING THROUGH CRIME
Humanoids Publishing
Philippe Thirault, Marc Riou, Mark Vigouroux & Jens Kristen
US$ 24.95 / CAN$ 39.95
ISBN: 1-930652-81-X

Reprinted by Humanoids, this exquisite French graphic novel contains some of the best American crime from the minds of some highly imaginative Continental creators. Split into four chapters, themed mostly around the characters' progression rather than a strict plot, this collection is packed to brimming with story.

Nola and Slim are from completely opposite ends of the track, but have very similar life experiences. When they meet, they both realise that they can only fix their lives by taking up an unusual career path. Killing people for money. And the most surprising thing is that it works so well for them. Facing bigotry right alongside bullets, Nola and Slim may find more than just kinship.

MISS almost reads like a noir METABARONS in its race to include as much story as possible without once letting the quality suffer. It's also a mark of the writer's ingenuity that we never hate the leads despite their regular - and often reprehensible - actions.

MISS is reprinted in greyscale, which feels appropriate to the emotional palette of the work. The art is hard to pin down. It's reminiscent of Lee Bermejo's thick angular inks, but also evokes the straight-laced insanity of Gene Ha. While at times keeping track of all the characters can be a touch confusing, everything from the characters' expressions to the run-down Manhattan of the twenties is perfectly rendered. A work of rare mainstream clarity from outside the mainstream comics market.

JONNY DOUBLE
DC Vertigo/Titan
By Brian Azzarello, Eduardo Risso, Grant Goleash & Clem Robins
UK £10.99
ISBN: 1-84023-483-0

Back in the fifties, Jonny Double used to be somebody; now he's just a washed-up nobody. A private eye living the unkempt, penniless drunk lifestyle of a man who fought the law and was thoroughly beaten down. When Jonny is hired to find a worried father's daughter, he just sees it as another rent payment and a dent in his bar-tab - but it turns out to be something more. The young woman he finds is mixed up in a plot to obtain Al Capone's lost loot. And while the original owner may be long gone, that doesn't mean the money won't be missed...

Like Peter Milligan and Edvin Biukovic's HUMAN TARGET, JONNY DOUBLE is one in a long list of D-grade DC characters given an extensive revamp by the best creative teams at the most imaginative mainstream imprint. The leeway given with the initial concept - a beatnik private eye from the fifties - allows Azzarello to tread his favourite ground and still create something a little more interesting than the norm. Double is a man who survives whatever may come, sometimes by the skin of his teeth... or, more accurately, his fingers.

The first breakthrough project for Risso in the American market and his first team-up with future 100 BULLETS cohort Azzarello, Risso makes noir seem easy. His near-parody caricatures evoke an unpleasant cartoon world of grit and grime. His camera never stops, hovering around a scene from every angle possible, picking up anything that captures the artist's eye. Even on their first workout, Azzarello and Risso make an infallible team.

JINX: THE DEFINITIVE COLLECTION
Image Comics
BY Brian Michael Bendis
US $24.95 / CAN $36.90
ISBN: 1-58240-179-9

JINX is definitive Bendis; Long-form and meandering. Time is given to every action and every inaction; passing conversations are given several pages; the characters dither with their goals and don't always do what you'd hope or what you'd imagine. This volume's sheer length is testament to the success of Bendis' more organic scripting. His characters are king and plot is a happy side effect.

The protagonist, Jinx Alameda, frets about her love life, worries about her rent, and stresses about living in Cleveland. But her biggest problem is that she's a bounty hunter. When she bumps into street-corner grifter Goldfish and his partner Columbia, the three becomes embroiled in a search for missing mob money. Yet it's the unfolding romance of tough tomboy Jinx and street-hardened nice guy Goldfish that may solve Jinx's most important problems.

For most people today, Bendis is a writer first and foremost. But like many writers (Ed Brubaker being a good example) he drew for the formative period of his career in order to get his work out there. Whilst the cartoon parody work of Bendis' FORTUNE & GLORY is evident under all the photo referencing, his ability to lay down ink is still extremely impressive. The sheer volume of referencing required for such a large volume belittles Bendis' design sense and vivid emotionality. With a little help from some friends, Bendis has opened himself to the page in a way that he may never manage again.

John Fellows works in the television industry providing assistive services to the deaf community.

This article is Ideological Freeware. The author grants permission for its reproduction and redistribution by private individuals on condition that the author and source of the article are clearly shown, no charge is made, and the whole article is reproduced intact, including this notice.