Christos Gage and Chris Samnee gave me the fucking willies.
The latest in Vertigo’s smaller-sized, hardcover “Vertigo Crime” series, Area 10 is spot-on amazing. A thriller that I couldn’t see coming for once, with art by the always-amazing Samnee that highlights the amazing straight black-and-white ultracontrast stuff you can see in his blog sketch posts, this is probably one of my favorite books of 2010 so far.
A slew of decapitations are plaguing the city by a killer being called “Henry the 8th”. When NYPD Detective Adam Kamen is stabbed in the head by a man driven to violence by voices, the mysterious practice of trepanning, or opening holes in the human skull to the brain, is brought to the attention of several people in the investigation, including one or two who might already be clued in…
I don’t want to say anything else because that might spoil it. I love both Gage and Samnee as guys who Make Comics, and I will read books with their names attached to them based on their names there, I’m that confident in them. But man, the two of them together are creating something bigger as a whole sum than just the two combined.
Area 10 is a smart story with twists, turns, and badass art that keeps you on your toes and holding your breath. What more do you want in a crime story?
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