For some escapist literature, who wouldn’t want to get into the head of a ruthlessly amoral man, lost without a moral compass?
Or, you know, the blood, guts, action and intrigue that some of the best crime stories weave with deadly precision? Yeah, that’s my bag!
Well, that’s what the French graphic novel series, The Killer is all about. Like its straight-ahead, dead-in-your-sights title, The Killer is just that: all-out action via the hand and gun of a contact killer.
Conceived by writer Matz and illustrator Luc Jacamon, The Killer was originally released in Europe as twelve distinct publications between 1998 and 2013. Archaia Studios Press, the off-the-beaten-path imprint of BOOM! Studios, re-published the series on this side of the Atlantic. Now they bring the next installment of the anti-hero’s exploits to American shores with a new six-issue miniseries entitled The Killer: Affairs of the State.
But unfamiliar readers may ask themselves: who is The Killer? And where does The Killer: Affairs of the State begin? And why now?
Well, the answers to those questions are all very exciting and enticing and cross artistic platforms!
As told by creators Matz and Jacamon, The Killer has always been a character study on human ruthlessness, loneliness, psychosis and the human traits that are opposite to all these things, namely empathy, kindness, love and of all the characteristic elements that make each of us truly human. Not light subjects, certainly, especially when the reader is taken on the journey inside the head of a deranged man – who is, by all account, someone to cheer for in these stories. That said, the merciless Killer continues to target those who are even worse than him.
In many ways, The Killer is the relentless and violently gritty Euro cousin to Richard Stark’s Parker novels, Jeff Lindsay’s Darkly Dreaming Dexter books – made famous by Michael C. Hall’s titular role in the Dexter Showtime television series – as well as Keanu Reeves’ John Wick sequence of films. To that point, beyond comic book storytelling, The Killer is making the jump to film later this year as a Netflix movie directed by David Fincher (Zodiac, The Social Network, Fight Club, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo) and written by Andrew Kevin Walker (Se7en, The Wolfman, Sleepy Hollow, 8mm). That’s going to be must-watch viewing.
In the new comic book miniseries, The Killer: Affairs of the State, the Killer is an on-call assassin for the French government, adjusting to using a handler and a partner now, all the while learning to live life as a civilian. But with a new target and a city full of corruption, will doing the “greater good” also allow for a cold and calculating killer to return to the care-free, if bloody, life he once lived?
Twists, turns and uncompromising action are sure to keep readers on the edge of their seats as they anticipate answers that are bound to come with bullets and fire, blood and death!
Make the run to your local comic book shop today and pick up and action-oriented, noir thriller The Killer: Affairs of the State #1. Enjoy the nihilistic ride while you wait for the silver screen adaptation that will surely have a new tranche of maniacal pop-culture enthusiasts excitedly buzzing!
