Review: Peepland #5
Most people celebrate New Years Eve, they go out and party, maybe get a little inebriated, overindulge, genuinely overdo their normal weekend festivities. What about the people who don’t party? Who can’t party, who fear for their lives?
Faust and Phillips have crafted a tale that is gritty, realistic and true to life in this minor Epic set on New Year’s Eve. The characters are from the more seedy side of town and the feel for this mature read (note, it’s not for kids) is neo-noir.
It’s not a happy story in any way shape or form, but it seems to have been inspired by true events. It’s a compelling read but not for the faint hearted. I seldom find a comic book with characters this compelling, a must have for fans of the genre, I enjoyed this story quite a bit.
The Creative Team:
Faust and Phillips waste no time showing you the dark side of New York City, the issue opens with a shot gun killing, then we go to a quarrel in an African American home where tensions rise between mother and son. The cops are searching for Roxanne Bell. It’s gritty, it’s tough and it will not leave a good feeling in your soul. But it will tell you a lot about life on the wrong side of town where murder and death are a daily occurrence. Nick Zero and his female companion drop off a piece of evidence via video tape to the Downtown Daily. Faust and Phillips show us tragedy on every page as the mystery becomes resolved. The final solution will be upsetting to a lot of people and they show us a world that most of us never experience in this twisted tale. Great reading, but sobering at the same time.
Andrea Camerini seems to know the neo-noir world quite well and brings it to us in an R-rated atmosphere that is both stylistic and atmospheric at the same time. The thing I love the most about her use of panels is near the end where she shows the contrast of New Yorkers celebrating the holiday and the ones involved in the crime. Not many of her New Yorkers have smiles on their faces. Their looks are lonely, sad and desperate. The majority of the citizens of the Big Apple in this story are oblivious to the celebration that is going on right in their own neighborhood. it’s an effective rendering of hopelessness among people whose lives never seem to quit the downward spiral that is their very existence.
The Cover:
The main cover shows us two scantily clad ladies with angry looks on their faces. They’re leaning against a doorway with a red curtain behind them, letting the comic store surfer know that they are in a seedy neighborhood. Both ladies have their arms folded and are holding cigarettes. There’s a blue neon light to their left to give the setting more ambiance and continue to show the type of neighborhood that they’re in. A great cover by Elias Chatzoudis that spells out the situation for the characters within.
In Conclusion:
Yes, the crime is solved. But the solving of the crime doesn’t seem to bring any peace or closure to anyone involved. It is not your happily ever after type of ending, but one that says that the misery and despair that is these peoples lives will go on and there will probably be more murders and crimes and none of them will find any peace. Again, sobering, but a necessary story to show the rest of us that not everyone lives the American dream and that those of us who worry about things like where transsexuals use the bathroom, or the price of alcohol going up at the neighborhood bar, or if that brand of lipstick goes with the rest of our make-up need to realize that there are more important things to deal with and maybe our energies would be better spent looking to improve the lives of the more impoverished around us.
Peepland #5
Writer: Christa Faust, Gary Philips
Art: Andrea Camerini
Colors: Marko Lesko
Letters: Comicraft’s Jimmy Betancourt
Publisher: Titan Comics
Publication date: April 2017
About the Author
Kevin Given Kevin Given has studied with "Longridge Writers Group" and "Writer's Boot Camp" a speech/communications major from the University of Maine Presque-Isle/Orono sites. He has created the "Karl Vincent Vampire Hunter" franchise which includes 2 novels and 8 comic books. They can be found on amazon, Indyplanet and Kindle. For a limited time you can get digital copies of "Karl Vincent: Vampire hunter" #1 and "Files of Karl Vincent" #1 for free on Indyplanet. Kevin is producing the third novel in the series "Dracula Rising" (working title) and developing "Foul Blood" into comic book form.
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