Today's Book Report is on a book that I finished months ago but it's taken me this long to put my thoughts down in writing.
In a series of graphic novels, writer Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips tells the tale of Ethan Reckless, a part-time private eye who would rather be running classic movies at his movie theater in 1980's Los Angeles. Purple-haired punk Anna is sort of the Watson to Ethan's Sherlock.
Ethan's history as a soldier and a CIA agent makes him recalcitrant to put his special skills to work. He would rather leave that part of his life behind him. But finding himself at the center of a maelstrom of sex, drugs, and murder, when people need help, he can't help but respond.
My book report is on the 5th graphic novel by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips in their Reckless series, Follow Me Down.
In the prior book, The Ghost In You, the focus was on Anna taking a case on her own while Ethan Reckless was out of town. Follow Me Down tells us what Ethan was up to during that time.
In 1989, Ethan takes a case that involves travelling to San Francisco to search for a missing woman. It's a case that takes a dark and violent turn, even for an Ethan Reckless case.
Ethan Reckless is a man who has made it a point to hold himself in check, to maintain an emotional divide between himself and the passions he encounters in his investigations, passions rooted in anger, revenge, fear, love and hate.
Follow Me Down shows us an Ethan whose barriers are ripped apart, caught in a downward spiral of one bad thing after another, violence begetting violence, and his own passions set ablaze by the woman he has been charged to find and to save.
Rachel is the missing woman Ethan is looking for. The case is a favor to a man who is Rachel's father in law. Rachel is missing because she has gone to ground, on a mission of murder.
Ethan finds Rachel but he can't stop her. She would rather die that give up making these men pay for they did to her. So Ethan winds up in the rather awkward situation of helping her complete her quest.
But in their intimate closeness as they stay on the trail of Rachel's targets and staying ahead of cops and crooks, they become drawn to one another. Whether it's love or just raw sexual attraction, Ethan and Rachel are fucking like there is no tomorrow.
And there may not be one. When the last target of Rachel's vengeance list eludes them, Rachel disappears.
While the Reckless series is narrated by an elder Ethan from sometime in the early 21st century, the adventures Ethan recounts occur in the 1980's. Follow Me Down provides a bit of a change to the formula. Our narrative jumps from 1989 to 2004 when Ethan sees Rachel again for the first time in 15 years.
Rachel's last target for revenge is in her sights at last.
The art of Follow Me Down is extraordinary with Sean Phillips providing his usual style of dark shadows and scratchiness that shows a world that is hard and brutal. Even when characters are just talking or thinking, Sean's art is dynamic and enticing.
Sean's work is enhanced by the colors of his son Jacob, using a muted palate that conveys despair and hopelessness with a flashes of red and yellow fire when violence is unleashed. Sean and Jacob make a perfect team for bring Reckless to life.
Ed Brubaker says this is the last of the Reckless books for awhile but more will be forthcoming. But in the meantime, Follow Me Down is a perfect capstone to everything Brubaker has built in this series of graphic novels. Everything that Ethan Reckless tried to be, tried to accomplish in the first of the series is brilliantly challenged and deconstructed.
Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips are the best creators of comic books for people who may not like comic books. I recommend The Fade Out, Kill or Be Killed or any of the Criminal collections. All worth seeking out.
But the Reckless graphic novels are the pinnacle of their work to date. And Follow Me Down is the ultimate expression of that pinnacle.
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BLOG BIDNESS: no post tomorrow. We're back on Friday.
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