Still on the Shelf #81 - Brodie's Law
Craig Reade

I think one of the biggest problems that small press titles have to contend with these days is attention span. Whether or not I like it, people seem to tend towards longer, more deliberately paced comic stories. The kind of stories that not too long ago would be found in a novel, not in a comic book. While this can work in a comic format, sometimes it takes several issues for a story to really get good. And with comics essentially being a “serial,” sometimes this can be problematic.

Every story has (or should have) some kind of hook – something to draw people in and make them want to read until the very end. Take Harry Potter, for instance. What’s the hook? The boy, who believed all his life he was ordinary, finds out he is a wizard. Something he never would have thought possible. That revelation in the story is the moment where you know whether or not you are going to like it. It doesn’t exactly happen until chapter four, though - until then it is all set up. So if you didn’t give it at least that much time, it is impossible to say whether or not you really liked the story, now is it? The problem is, while most people are willing to give a novel a few chapters to hook them, with a comic – something you have to spend money on for each and every part. If the first issue or two doesn’t get you, chances are you are not picking up issue #3.

So the challenge becomes how do you keep people buying long enough to get hooked on your story? If you are a mainstream title, that is easy. Make a twelve issue Elektra series, and Elektra fans will buy the whole thing no matter what. Sometimes a name is what you need – put Busiek or Lee on a title (if you can afford them), and you can about guarantee that your comic will have some repeat readers.

Maybe some of you are thinking that if the story is GOOD enough, then the comic should be exciting from the first issue. While I subscribe to the idea that every comic writer should do something in the very first issue to make it special, to keep people’s interest, I don’t really think that it is always possible to do that. And a comic could be skillfully written with beautiful art, but if the story’s hook doesn’t come soon enough, you are going to lose readers.

To be completely honest, if I were to read this week’s title, Brodie’s Law, as each new issue came out, chances are I might have dropped it after the second issue, and I wouldn’t be telling you about it. Were those first two issues bad? Not at all – they were very well written and the art was beautiful. They have both gotten outstanding reviews. But that “hook,” the thing that makes this story special, doesn’t happen until the third issue. And that is a long time for some people to wait in comics. But most comic readers these days seem to want these kinds of slow-build stories. In essence, it is a Catch 22.

Brodie’s Law is a very dark, “hard boiled” story with a very shady anti-hero as a protagonist. Now this isn’t normally the kind of story I go for, which is the reason I wasn’t hooked right away with the way the first two issues came out. Basically what I am trying to say here is – patience! This is a great comic, it just takes a few issues to get warmed up, is all.

The Story

Jack Brodie was a professional criminal and hit-man. He had quite a reputation amongst the lawless as a brutal and effective killer. After a job gone wrong, and his ex-wife is murdered and son kidnapped, Brodie seeks revenge.

One of the few things he came away with that fateful night was the disk that he was hired to steal. The disk, containing the data from an experiment conducted by P-Fact, is encoded, and Brodie can’t access what is on the files. So he goes out and finds someone who can.

Tomokai Yoshida turns out to be just the woman he needs. After a bit of a rough introduction (he does kidnap her, after all), she agrees to help him decode the data on the disk in exchange for a payment to be later named. He agrees, and she sets to work. She finds that the experiment on the disk outlines a procedure that would grant a person the power to steal another person’s essence and DNA patterns just by touching them. Until that essence is returned, the subject’s body would change, matching the victim’s appearance exactly. Brodie believes this will allow him to get undercover enough to find out what happened to his son, and who is responsible for taking him.

Meanwhile the police, P-Fact, and elements of the underworld all want him dead. How will he find his son and exact revenge while so many want him captured or dead? Read to find out!

Thoughts

I’ve made several references to those first two issues, and I am afraid that you might have the wrong idea. I enjoyed those issues – they were well written and well produced, and they fit very well into the overall flow of the story. It was just the subject matter that I didn’t so much enjoy. See, when reading, I don’t normally go for the hard-boiled, underworld mystery type story. And despite the quality, that “hook,” that something different to make this story special, hadn’t quite come around yet. If you really enjoy that kind of story, this is definitely the comic for you. But for me - wasn't my cup of tea. Not yet, anyway. Issue three allowed Brodie's Law to transcend beyond something that only fans of the genre could appreciate and enjoy into something more. That is where the whole point of the series becomes clear, and everything they said about the book in the blurbs makes sense ("What would the law mean if every day it had a different face?"). After that "ah-ha" moment, even people who might not like the genre have a reason to care. And boy am I glad I was lucky enough to read through that point.

I really have to give high praise to the artistic look of this series. David Bircham does a great job illustrating a dank and dark world. The characters are distinct and realistic. Sometimes the panels are a bit busy, making it so that you have to study them a little more carefully, but I think the look of the comic is as such that you are doing this already. Now I am not the greatest technical art critic out there, but I have to give a lot of credit to the color work on this series. I don’t know how technically sound it is (my expertise being in the written word), but I do like the end result. Not to downplay the skill of the pencil work in this series at all, but I have to say that from my perspective, it really is the color that makes it for this comic’s overall feel.

The story is pretty straightforward and enjoyable. It isn’t hard to understand Brodie’s actions at all, and even the most complicated plot points make sense, and are explained fairly easily. And though this is a dark and violent story, you really don’t SEE all of the violence, which is somewhat refreshing. There is some blood – this isn’t THAT clean of a comic, but I really expected to see blood dripping off of each and every panel. Some things don’t always need to be shown on the page, and these folks, so far, get that.

Bottom Line

I think the creators of Brodie’s Law, like most small press publications, really, have an uphill battle on their hands. If this title was put out by one of the more major publishing houses, I have no doubt that you would have all heard about it by now, and most of you would have tried it at least once. As it is, they are just getting ready to put out their third issue, and I would wager that most of you might not have heard of it yet. That is the plight of small press comics, and I suppose that is why there are columns like this one.

If you enjoy books like Sleeper, I really think that you should give Brodie’s Law a shot. Brodie’s Law is solicited in Previews, under Studio G (so your local comic shop can order it), and carries a cover price of $2.95. You can find more information on the title, including issue synopses, character overviews, preview pages, and links to reviews at BrodiesLaw.com.

Credit Where Credit is Due
Brodie’s Law is
Written by Alan Grant, with
Art and Covers by David Bircham,
Story by Daley Osiyemi and David Bricham,
Lettered by Debo, and
Published by Studio G.