Criminal

How the hell did I forget to review this thing? I'm normally so bloody diligent about that. Damn.

Criminal: the Deluxe Edition. It's amazing. It's tremendous. It's worth every penny. Did I really miss reviewing it?

I read the first story (Coward) after Bad Eye loaned it to me. I waited around for the Deluxe Edition to come out, as it was a collection of all the books in the Criminal series (plus extras). Coward was amazing and I needed more.

Criminal is modern noir. But it's a little bit more on the realism tip than say Sin City. It's stylized in its own way. It's incredibly cinematic. There's a lot of humanistic aspects to the drawing, especially the postures and facial expressions, that really elevate the art past everyone else out there. It feels like you're reading a film, frame by frame, as opposed to reading a comic. The brilliant art and great writing just suck you into the Criminal word from the get-go. You're immersed. You live it.

All the stories are worth reading. Characters and places reoccur from story to story and it makes you feel like you're part of a Criminal universe. It makes the whole greater than the sum of its parts. Similar to Sin City in that regard.

I gotta look back, but I wouldn't be surprised if this was the best comic I read in 2012. It's essential.