These last times have been very hard for me in term of comics. I read lots of material (mainly from the Big 2) , but I couldn’t find anything that I really, really liked.
That’s why I decided to move my sights somewhere else, and I ended up reading The Private Eye.
The author is Brian K. Vaughan, who usually gives us good material (and that gives me a cue for a new article to write, because there’s many good comics from him that you may have not read…), and the artist is Marcos Martin, which I’ve had previously seen doing Daredevil during the Mark Waid run, but I believe it didn’t make him that much justice as in this comic.
There are many things to enjoy from this book: from the landscape format (horizontal), which Marcos Martin takes full advantage of and gives lots of spectacularity to some pages, the great action and the film noir story mixed in a scy-fi environment, the authors build a universe you don’t want to end.
The format
Yes, this book is published in a horizontal format. And that has a reason why.
This story was originally published in panelsyndicate.com, a web page that you may not know about originally created by Marcos Martin and Brian K. Vaughan to publish this book we’re talking about. After that, it has also published creator owned books from other authors to be read online, in a pay-as-you-wish format.
This means that you can download the books by paying as much as you can or want, to read in your computer. In your screen. That, by the way, looks horizontal. So, that’s the reason of the format.
All in all, an interesting idea… the authors behind the books they publish are great, so it’s a really interesting site to check.
Of course, if you really love the book, it has been published on paper. Believe me, this book is great, you’ll probably want to have it in your shelves.
The Story
The book is set 50 years in the future, in a futuristic society where the differences are more than cosmetic.
There has been an event called “The Flood”, when ALL the information from the people (I mean, ALL!) went public. Everybody could see other’s people private pics, private conversations, etc. That brought a lot of destruction as a consecuence, as public images, marriages, careers, where destroyed.
The internet disappeared, and people started to wear some kind of technological disguises whenever they go public to protect themselves.
There were also changes on who the authorities and law enforcement people are. I could write a lot about this, but I believe it’s better if you go read the book on a fresh mind, without much information about what you will find.
All I’ll mention is that the main character is a kind of Private Investigator, who gets involved in searching what happened to a potential customer. The story has all the flavor and elements of a Raimond Chandler novel, set in a futuristic L.A. with flying cars, lots of action and all type of strange characters.
It’s “The Long Goodbye”, mixed with “Blade Runner”, with some elements from a James Bond movie.
Must I add it up all this in just one word? Fun!!
The artwork is really spectacular. Marcos Martin (with Vicente Muntsa in colors) make a great job in setting up this environment, with a mix of retro and futuristic elements.
If you still have doubts about it, consider that it won two important Awards in 2015: the Eisner for Best Digital / Web Comic, and the Harvey for Best Online Comics work. Good job, guys!
I sincerely thank Brian Vaughan and Marcos Martin for giving me the book I enjoyed the most this year so far. Give it a try, guys, you’ll thank me later.
As we always say… keep reading good comics!!
