Let’s face it: graphic novels don’t get the respect they deserve. Authoritarian parents vilify them for corrupting today’s youth. And kids these days! All they want is schlock to fill the boring gaps of time between meals and Wii time.
For the average reader, these stereotypes explore what’s missing in the graphic novel world. The shelves of comic books stores are lined with snuff stories, gratuitous gut slicing violence, and jingoistic military ads. There’s no staying power in pages like that.
Oh sure, this allegation sends elitists scurrying to Art Spiegelman’s Maus or bowing before R. Crumb’s Book of Genesis. Loners who couldn’t get seven digits if they lost three fingers (e.g. this reviewer) rally around Brian K. Vaughan’s and Pia Guerra’s Y: The Last Man. But this is like telling someone who liked the ghosts in Harry Potter that he or she should read Wuthering Heights.
The issue isn’t the place of Wuthering Heights in the literary canon. It’s that Wuthering Heights is not what the average reader wants. Even if it were, classics are as easy to find as trash.
The in-between stories require effort to discover. These missing volumes are the graphic novel equivalents of Louis L’Amour westerns. They’re decent stories with defined heroes and villains. Easy reads with strong heroes and simple motives. Graphic novels like this need to be easy to find. If they’re not right at hand, the average reader will settle for whatever is closest. Vertigo’s sub-imprint, Vertigo Crime, and its 2010 release, Rat Catcher appears to be a direct response to that market void.
Like all ten volumes published under this sub-imprint, distinctive branding along Rat Catcher‘s binding identifies a Vertigo Crime title. Despite the homogeneous look, the stories are disparate tales. The hunted snarl of the main character and the silhouette behind him on this cover lays the groundwork for a gritty story of righteous vindication.
Writer Andy Diggle delivers just that: no surprises, no complexities, no dithering or doubts. FBI man William Lynch has been betrayed, family slaughtered, and is being hunted by an assassin — the eponymous Rat Catcher. There’s enough bullets, vengeance, and adventure for an entire evenings read.
Artist Victor Ibanez’s ink-saturated landscapes and sharp interiors provide the perfect settings for Diggle’s story. Rather than burying clues and red herrings in each panel, Ibanez’s illustrations allow Diggle to tell the story through the character’s dialogue.
It’s no spoiler to know that this story ends exactly how the reader knows it will. A story like this isn’t read for the ending. It’s read like a Louis L’Amour western: readers know the bad guys won’t win and they’re okay with that. They don’t read for the ending but for the journey. They come along for the curves and turns the writer detours through on his way to the final showdown. And the Diggle/Ibanez team provides a decent ride.
(Vertigo Crime, 2010)
Descriptive and interesting review of Rat Catcher. Wondering if artist Victor Ibanez was a punk musician in SF?
Hey Suzi Scandal,
Thanks for the comment. Unfortunately, I was unable to find anything out one way or the other. There is amazingly little about the illustrator-Ibanez on-line.
Joseph
Hahaha.
No I wasn’t a Punk Musician in San Francisco. Nor a hippy one.
But I would have been interesting.
I’m glad you like the artwork. I repeated a lot of pages and it was a struggle. But I toke some serious lesson after it.
Thanks!