Holy Smokes.
This is the most GRAPHIC graphic novel I have ever read. F*^& is in every f*^&ing word balloon, breasts on every page, and the gore is second only to a Berserker zombie comic. What a ride!
The Chill is a graphic mystery novel published by Vertigo in the Vertigo Crime series. The books are the size of a regular novel, hard cover, and all of the covers in the series are done by Lee Bermejo. Vertigo Crime boasts some of the best writers and artists in the business. The books are beautifully crafted and would make an incredible collection lined up on your shelf. Check them out here:
http://www.dccomics.com/dccomics/search/?q=%22vertigo+crime%22&s=na&f=10933
The Chill is an ancient Celtic power used for immortality. When females endowed with the chill have sex with their victims, their bodies are temporarily frozen so the male can be sacrificed and his life-force taken. Arlena has been gifted with the chill from her mother and her father has brought her to New York to take as many lives as needed to keep them alive forever. Police think that they have a serial killer on their hands, but Martin Cleary, a retired cop from Boston, knows better. He knows Arlena personally; he was her first victim. The NYPD thinks he’s crazy, but by the end of the novel, everyone realizes that the horror of the chill is real.
Jason Starr and Mick Bertilorenzi have crafted crime noir on a different plane. Starr, a Brooklyn native, gives The Chill the same New York grittiness that Howard Chaykin gives Die Hard: Year One, but pulls no punches in getting his vision across. His bluntness leaves little to be imagined, pulling the reader along for the ride. Starr has an honest style. His dialogue is real world and sometimes offensive. He understands that even the good guys are flawed.
Mick Bertilorenzi’s art was my favorite thing about this book. I’ll be honest, I’m not a big fan of nudes in comics, and this comic had A LOT of them, but Mick did an outstanding job of keeping proportions true and drawing incredibly sexy characters. Because Arlana is constantly changing form, Mick was tasked with drawing multiple beautiful women per page. It would be easy to confuse a reader with how the characters see Arlana, but Bertilorenzi’s execution was flawless. He managed to change characters’ views of her without losing my attention or having to look back and figure out what was going on.
The Chill is really unlike any crime novel that I’ve read before. I enjoyed the Celtic folklore in the novel and how the story was based on it, but I have to admit that the execution was a little too much for me. I think Jason Starr did something very different and unique for this genre. I would compare his writing to someone such as Quentin Tarintino. It’s real, filthy, and blatant. Accompanied by the brutal art of Mick Bertolorenzi, this novel is extreme.
I’m sure any crime noir fan would love it.
I’ve had my eyes on these Vertigo crime books for a while now – especially “Filthy Rich”!
I can’t wait to read this smut!
probably give this a miss … we Brits frown on such things as nudes in printed material … well … apart from those you have to be tall enough to reach on the top shelf of your local newsagent that is.
Read this last night.
I enjoyed it. I wasn’t blown away by it, but I did enjoy it.
I’m a sucker for mythology and folklore, of which this had it’s share. The fact that it was blended into a modern-day setting….. I’m not sure if this worked all that well for me. But despite the incongruity, I still loved the subject matter. I love that stuff, always have.
The best part of this book was definitely the art by Bertilorenzi. Great stuff. I’m very interested to see more of what he’s done.
Overall opinion: Not that bad. Not my favorite thing ever, but a fun read.