Fogtown
by Anderson Gabrych - Writer
and Brad Rader - Artist
Cover Illustration - Lee Bermejo
Publisher - Vertigo Crime
Publication Date - August 2010 | Pages - 171 | Price - $19.99
Format - Graphic Novel / Hardcover | ISBN-13 - 978-1401213848
"It's 1953, and Frank Grissel is a man from the old school-a tough-talking, hard drinking, womanizing private dick who's seen it all and done it all...twice."
This quote from the back cover of the latest entry in the Vertigo Crime series of original graphic novels is a completely accurate description of the story's protagonist, and still completely misleading. At face value Frank is a cliche, something that a story character even comments on. It is only when you begin to look beneath the surface that you find out how complex a character Frank Grissel really is.
The same can be said for the graphic novel Fogtown. At first glance it is a typical post-WW II private eye film noir piece, all glamorous and untrustworthy dames luring our down-on-his-luck tough-guy through a series of brawls and double-crosses. And it is! Fogtown delivers beautifully on all of the aspects that make us love hard-boiled crime fiction. And then it takes those over worn ideas and turns them on their head.
Writer Anderson Gabrych is able to take contemporary themes and, not so much force them into a period piece, but to point out to us that what we might consider contemporary has actually been going on for a long time.
Frank Grissel is a man with secrets, secrets that could come out of the closet if he exposes the truth of this case. For tough-guy Frank, some secrets are best left in the closet, if you know what I mean. Oh, for goodness sakes, Frank is gay! (And no, this really doesn't spoil the story. Frank has other things hiding in his past.)
Openly gay creators Gabrych and Rader have the ability to tell a story in the crime fiction genre that uses their protagonist to tell a great crime story, not a syrupy or preachy treatise on gay rights. Franks' sexuality is an important part of the story, but only because the mystery he unravels is about sex, money, power and the abuse of all three. The story is hard-hitting on many levels. All of the characters are in bad and abusive relationships and everyone is hiding things. The twists and turns of the plot flow from the characters. We find out how far they are willing to go to either reveal or hide the truth. This can be said of all good noir fiction. The genius of Fogtown is in dealing with sexual issues that were much more hidden in the fifties than they are now. After all, good mysteries are about secrets!
Artist Brad Rader won a 1999 Emmy Award for directing Spawn, the animated series. Fogtown is a long way from his days as storyboard artist for Rainbow Brite or drawing Batman Adventures for comics, but his animation training shows through in his stark and straightforward story telling. His ink line is bold, adding detail where needed and knowing when to simplify for maximum impact. The attention to period detail is an important part of the storytelling. This is an adult story. The depiction of sex and violence in the artwork can be unflinching but manages to avoid being exploitative.
Fogtown is hard-boiled crime fiction, first and foremost. That the twists, turns and betrayals are based on and reveal the characters in the story makes it good crime fiction. That those characters reveal something about our world and our reactions to it make it great crime fiction!
Bill Love / Comic Related Columnist
Bill spent ten years in television production then ten years teaching production and journalism at the high school level. He has over a decade of comics retailing experience and has written, edited and done interviews for Sketch Magazine and other Blue Line Art publications. Together with Bob Hickey, Bill created Graphic Novel Scene to serve the library community as a selection tool in choosing graphic novels for their growing collections.
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