Like many, when I see or hear the words “night” and “fever” I can’t help but think of the famous Bee Gees song and my toe immediately starts to incessantly tap. The disco 70’s club scene was something else, wasn’t it? Not that I was there to experience it firsthand, but I’ve listened to the music, seen the videos, watched the movies and documentaries: all mirror ball lights, long and feathered hair, glossy lipstick, tight-fitting clothes that sparkle, and sex.
What a scene!
But take those haughty images and the musical beat away and the lyrics to the famous song mentioned above can also conjure other sorts of pictures in the mind’s eye. “Listen to the ground, there is movement all around, there is something going down, and I can feel it.”
Say it with a little menace, now.
There’s a grime-covered underbelly to the nighttime party scene that is true to any generation. It’s a setting ripe for darker works of crime fiction: noir. One of this writer’s favourite genres.
Today, two of the best comic book creators who work in that particular genre have released a brand new hardcover graphic novel, adding to their already impressive oeuvre, with a book enticingly titled, Night Fever.
Created by long-time collaborators, writer Ed Brubaker (Criminal, Reckless, Kill Or Be Killed, Velvet, The Fade Out, Gotham Central, Daredevil, Immortal Iron Fist) and illustrator Sean Phillips (Criminal, Kill Or Be Killed, My Heroes Have Always Been Junkies, Sleeper, Incognito, John Constantine: Hellblazer), the gripping noir of Night Fever is a 120-page hardcover graphic novel, published by their long-time partner in crime, Image Comics.
In a strange-but-perfect cross between the themes found in films such as Eyes Wide Shut and Collateral (even more strangely, both Tom Cruise starring flicks), Night Fever is the story of the sleepless and restless Jonathan Webb, on a European business trip, and wondering the streets of an unfamiliar foreign city – where’s he’s made a new, mysterious and violent, friend. Rainer gives Jonathan a tour of the seedy underbelly of town where there are no rules…and no limits.
Night Fever, billed as a Jekyll-and-Hyde noir thriller about a man facing his own darkness, promises to stun and entertain lovers of mystery and dark action stories. Just like Brubaker and Phillips always do!
Whether you’re in comfortable jeans or a tight-fitting sequined suit, run (or disco-dance) your way to the local, better, comic book shop and pick up the long-awaited and compelling Night Fever hardcover graphic novel today!
You can catch a cool trailer for Night Fever directly below.
