The Scene Of The Crime Is Right Here On The Wednesday Run – November 14, 2012

I tell ‘ya, there’s always something interesting to pick up at your local comic book shop on a Wednesday.

Action. Adventure. Mystery. Horror. Drama: super-powered heroes with masks, capes and spandex tights; regular sorts of people making their way in the world, falling in love and then out of it; espionage and the political machinations between government states; speculative, futurist fiction that educates us on today’s prevalent issues; gun-toting schemers and the people charged in bringing them to justice.

Yep. The local comic book shop has them all on a Wednesday.

For some people, that might mean picking up The Boys #72, Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson’s final issue of their treatise on superheroes, celebrity and debauchery!

For others, that could mean hurriedly picking up Batman #14 and finding out what writer Scott Snyder, artist Greg Capullo – and the insanely evil Joker – have really done to Alfred!

For me, Wednesday, November 14 means racing to the local shop and grabbing the critically acclaimed 1999 crime series, Scene of the Crime.

Scene of the Crime – Deluxe HC
Written by: Ed Brubaker
Illustrated by: Michael Lark and Sean Phillips
Published by: Image Comics

First published by Vertigo Comics as a four-issue mini series, Scene of the Crime tells the hard hitting noir story of private detective Jack Herriman tracking down a missing young woman through the streets of San Francisco. Think Chinatown and L.A. Confidential here, legendary tales of crime and suspense and mystery. To reinforce this, the creators have even included a character that owes a nod to mid-twentieth century crime photojournalist, Weegee, the pseudonym of Arthur Fellig. (The nickname was derived from “Ouija” for Fellig’s uncanny crime scene arrivals, only minutes after the crimes had been committed!)

Scene of the Crime was nominated for two Eisner Awards including Best Mini Series and Best Writer. In fact, it was the first project that Brubaker and Lark worked on before moving on to acclaimed, award-winning runs on Gotham Central (which you can – and should – pick up in four different compilations) and Daredevil. Brubaker and Phillips would go on to create the acclaimed Criminal, Incognito and Sleeper. We’re talking about some major names here, all well regarded in sequential art and storytelling circles.  Scene of the Crime, in many ways, begins the ideas that would inform the careers of these three individuals.

Make the run to your local comic book shop today. Pick up The Boys and Batman. But make sure you grab a copy of the finally-back-in-print deluxe hardcover of Scene of the Crime.

Let it tickle your love of noir crime. Let it scratch your mystery itch. Let it stoke your interest in great comic book storytelling.

Every Wednesday, JP makes the after-work run to his local downtown comic book shop. Comics arrive on Wednesdays you see and JP, fearful that the latest issue will sell out, rushes out to purchase his copy. This regular, weekly column will highlight a particularly interesting release, written in short order, of course, because JP has to get his – before someone else does!