Comic World News

April 22, 2008:
CWN and the Grand Finale! -

February 4, 2008:
In Conclusion - David ends his CWN run with Tezuka's MW from Vertical

February 2, 2008:
Acting Like You Have Nothing to Prove -

February 2, 2008:
The Shoegazer Returns - A New Year Begins, And Our Narrator Makes A Pledge

January 30, 2008:
Tim's Reviews -

September 13, 2007:
Wizard World Chicago Loot, Part One - Stykman, Empty Chamber, the Ztarian Saga, and yes, Little Bunny Foo Foo

February 15, 2007:
I Come Not to Bury Nick Cage... - But to mourn the death of my punchline

November 20, 2006:
The End - Rich's last Chicks & Romance

November 8, 2006:
Joann Sfar's Klezmer - And a Front Racks Hiatus

October 4, 2006:
This Month's Guest: Dave Gibbons - From the pages of Elephantmen!

September 18, 2006:
Back in Berlin - or How I spent my summer

July 29, 2006:
KICKING UP A STORM - An interview with David Lloyd

June 19, 2006:
You Ain't Never Had A Friend Like Me. - Graeme looks at Spidey's "genies"

December 18, 2005:
Disappointed - Sad news for fans of Busiek's CONAN, Stephen King, and others

December 13, 2004:
JUSTICE UNPLUGGED 2 at last !!! - By Fabrice Sapolsky & Xavier Fournier

December 2, 2004:
THE TWELFTH AND FINAL STEP - Say it ain't so, Dan.

November 23, 2004:
The importance of editing -

September 29, 2004:
Mystery and Conundrum indeed! - Where in the world is Jason Pomerantz?

September 13, 2004:
Hello and Goodbye and Hello Again - Change is in the air at CWN and it smells sweet.

August 12, 2004:
The Rise of the Web Toon - New Business Model or Dumb Luck?

July 30, 2004:
The Name Says it All... - Spin Doctors revamp Boomerang.

July 27, 2004:
Bigger Isn't Always Better -

June 8, 2004:
Pre-emptive Strike: MoCCA Arts Festival - Looking forward to the con, rather than looking back at it

The Layer Method
Our top Secret time-saving technique for creating and merging balloons and tails in Illustrator.

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

The Living and the Dead

Secrets are murder

Written by Todd Livingston, Robert Tinnell
Illustrated by Micah Farritor

Published by Speakeasy Comics
$14.99

The Living and the Dead opens with a country doctor named Schmidt as he attends a gruesome theatrical performance in which real people are slaughtered for the audience�s entertainment. Horrified, he writes a letter to an estranged acquaintance, begging for help in shutting down the insane snuff show. The doctor�s quest to end the atrocities will uncover a dark Secret from his past � a Secret that he�s dedicated to preserving, even from his wife and young son � but he risks exposure in order to succeed in doing what must be done.

And that�s all I can tell you about the story without spoiling it. The problem is that the doctor�s Secret is very, very cool. I bought The Living and the Dead a long time before I actually opened it up to read it. Had I known the Secret, I would�ve torn into it immediately. So, I want you to know the Secret too, so that you�ll go track down a copy with as much enthusiasm as I have for the book right now having read it. But I can�t.

My job as a critic is to try to convince you to either read or avoid a comic. I can�t just tell you, �Hey, this one�s great! You should read it. Trust me!� I have to give you reasons. But I can�t in this case. At least, I can�t give you the most compelling one. I can tell you that Livingston and Tinnell have written a thrillingly uncomfortable story about not only the danger of secret-keeping, but also the peril of doing things that require keeping secrets about. I can tell you that Farritor does a brilliant job of creating real characters and setting a perfect, unsettling mood in his illustrations. What I can�t do is to tell you why I completely and perfectly love this book and why it�s a flawless example of what it is that it is. Because I can�t tell you what it is. That would be giving it away.

And now I�ve said too much.

I hate secrets. This one�s killing me, but in order for you to get out of The Living and the Dead what I did, you have to approach it from the same place that I did. In order for you to love it as much as I did, you have to not know what�s going on until you start to figure out the Secret. And then when it�s revealed and things start to happen that you really wanted to see happen, you�ll feel the same satisfaction that I did. And then we can talk about the Secret.

But we can�t talk about it now, and in that way, I know a little something about how Dr. Schmidt feels in the story. I don�t know that that was Livingston and Tinnell�s intention, but it�s pretty cool, if frustrating, the way it worked out.