Dynamite Entertainment 2016
Written by Garth Ennis
Illustrated by Craig Cermak
Coloured by Vinicius Andrade
Lettered by Rob Steen
Eddie and Trudy start realizing just how deep they're in, as the extent of Eric Nightingale's influence becomes clear. Eric has agreed to wear a wire—but will the evidence he gathers help or hinder our heroes' investigation? And will the complications of their personal lives throw a further spanner in the works?
This is the kind of cop story we want to see, namely done by some cable network where the actors can swear like HBO or Showtime. Not only is this so incredibly well written by Garth, which should come as absolutely no surprise to anyone, but the way he creates tension and directs the artwork with the dialogue and narration to pain a full picture is utterly amazing. We open up with the Father and Lawyer, Dershowitz, in the interrogation room talking to Eric. Well dad being a man of privilege he was screaming at him, after all he’s a well known man and this is a dark spot on him. Even without hearing what was said well it’s still powerful characterisation as we get Eddie’s narration of events.
Trudy’s boyfriend invited her and she by extension invited Eddie to a gallery opening. This was marvelous! I love that this is that chance that Garth gets to interject that sexual innuendo into this kind of story I mean the visuals here as the two walk the gallery and see the exhibited work is a true joy. Craig does some incredible work on these and I applaud the outrageous audacity in getting to go to this level. While the tree was interesting personally I love the toilet piece.
Craig’s work on the interiors with Vinicius have been strong with incredible attention to detail. The flow of the book through page layouts with the use of angles, perspective and those all important backgrounds really bring this to life beautifully. It really elevates the look and feel of the story to that level that makes it easy to see it should be a project that comes to life on the small screen. The characters expressions and emotions can be easily read and regardless of the situation.
This issue has a lot of characterisation and story development in it and the way Garth presents it this is the essential stuff to understand their complicated past and their desire to prove their worth on this case. Yes they are skirting rules and doing things their way but there’s no denying that they’ve built themselves a solid case until something comes along to ruin that for them.
Eric has agreed to go undercover with a mic and get on tape incriminating evidence to help them go easy on him. I love the lawyer and his creepy calm manner. He kind of steals every scene he’s in. So it’s time for things to heat up again and I can’t wait to see what’s going to happen next. This really is the kind of cop drama that bends all the rules and is done in a way that is fully engaging.