Tripwire Reviews Ed Brubaker And Sean Phillips’ Where The Body Was

Body Of Evidence

Tripwire’s senior editor Andrew Colman reviewed Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips’ Where The Body Was out now from Image Comics…

Writer: Ed Brubaker
Artist: Sean Phillips
Colourist: Jacob Phillips
Image Comics

Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips’ latest graphic novel is a departure for the creative duo, a subtle, downbeat tale of low-level intrigue set in Anytown USA that despite not featuring their traditional hallmarks of hardboiled detective fiction nevertheless plays very well indeed. In certain respects, this is a labour of love for Brubaker, a tribute to the pulp whodunits of the 1940s referred to as mapbacks. But it’s also a nostalgia trip for the writer, a fictionalised tale of various memories and incidents from his youth, featuring minor suburban scandal, dark secrets and unsolved mysteries.

Brubaker and Phillips’ calling card is their ability to create a time and place, and people it with strong, palpable and all-too human characters, even if they are for the most part archetypes. The ensemble includes the amoral and itinerant soul that is Tommy Brandt, a young drifter who has fallen for the equally feckless Karina, the pair holed up in a squat that used to be a beloved communal hub. Their neighbours in Pelican Road are other lost or damaged players, such as Palmer Sneed, the man in possession of a police badge, Toni, a middle-aged woman ignored by her dour and sinister husband Ted who is in desperate need of attention, a private investigator, a homeless veteran and Lila, a young girl who is a self-appointed vigilante and the tale’s conscience. Suspicion, quiet surveillance and drawn curtains are the banal order of the day, but the flash-forwards (many of the cast are POV characters) bring a depth and humanisation to the proceedings, which in many respects supersede the denouement, when all the subplots briefly intersect.

Brubaker’s storytelling here is reminiscent of several classic strands of American pop culture, not least his own early independent series, the excellent Lowlife, an angst-ridden study of alienation and unfulfillment. There are nods in the narrative to other influences, such as Stephen King’s Stand by Me, along with the master of such introspective four color journeys, Dan Clowes. But this work is all about concision and less is more – there is noir, but it comes not from threat but the shadowy echoes of the past and future, and the characters who are entrapped in the street’s banal and hermetic setting. Sean Phillips’ art, and Jacob Phillips’ nuanced palette, are spare and lack affectation, but are perfect for the story, which is all about inevitable consequences, and how delusion and duplicity quickly become the norm. “I’m the only person on this whole street that’s not a liar” says Lila, and she isn’t wrong. Perhaps the most honest liar in the street is Palmer, who is more than aware and accepting of his deep-seated fraudulence.

Brubaker and Phillips have over the years become the standard-bearers for comic noir, but this effort seeks to broaden their remit, with expertly drafted and weaved plot strands, coupled with the artist’s moody and evocative line work. What’s remarkable is that such a manifestly understated tale could be so compulsive, not to mention cinematic. But that’s the deft and painstaking skill of two of the best creators in the business. If you’re tired of spandex operas, I would strongly recommend this.

Where The Body Was is out now from Image Comics