"Post No. 527"

(In keeping with my opinion that "if I haven't read it then it's NEW to me", in this post I'll be ---)

REVIEWING: Sinner #2 magazine-size trade paperback, Fantagraphics Books, 1988, 36 pages, B&W w/color cover, Jose Munoz & Carlos Sampayo, Consultant and logo design by Art Spiegleman, $2.95

This is a detective story in the style of film noir, and, in fact, a line such as "My fee is one hundred dollars a day plus expenses" can be said as "lifted" from any of a number of classic private dick flicks from the 1940's and '50's.

In this particular story called "The Webster Case", Pvt. Detective Alacki Sinner is hired by a well-to-do man to check into numberous treats to the live of his wife, and other maliciousness such as poisoning his dog and sugaring his gas tank. Along the way he meets the snooty wife, two spoiled girl children, an old maid secretary, a high tempered chauffeur, and by all appearences, the mother of the man who hired him. But things aren't always as they seem as in any good detective story, and there's several twists and turns as both the wife and one of the girls are killed which changes his mind as to "who" the killer may be.

The style of writing and uses of darks in various panels leaves me to strongly believe that Frank Miller was influenced by stories such as this when doing his Sin City stories. It's an excellant whodunnit.

The backup tale in this issue is by Alberto Breccia, and is an adaptation of the story, "The Slaughtered Chicken". It's nine pages of underlined horror, also in black and white, save for disturbing blotches of red which leads up to its climax. All in all, this publication is definately for the Mature Reader. :^D