I Had Issues! My Old Review of Killing PIckman

One of the strangest reviews I ever did for the old site I worked for. I came by this book under odd circumstances when one of the book's creators (I can't remember who) sent it to us (ore me directly) inquiring if we could review it. I felt more pressure due to this, and it might even show in my words below. 

Looking over the article as I checked for errors, I was surprised to find that I claimed the title was taken from a Lovecraft story. I have no memory of any rock solid evidence to back up this claim, so I took it out of the draft below. Originally published January 13, 2012.Otherwise edited for clarity.

Holy Hell, this is one of the more visceral stories I remember out of my recent comics reading. This could have been written off as a hot mess of a book. Writer Jason Becker borrows from multiple sources. His story is part dialogue is part cop drama, part Warren Ellis' interpretation of cop dramas (including a familiar anti-CSI rant), part supernatural with more Lovecraft and other mythology thrown in. Jon Rea's art shows shades of Ben Templesmith, a little Ted McKeever, and even Matt Howarth. With such a title choice, in a sense, unless there are m aster twists, the ending is somewhat alluded to. And the comic holds together. Somewhat shakily, but it holds.

Detective William Zhu "solves" his biggest case, arresting a child killer by going into the kidnapper's house while going door to door. One might wonder why it even took this method since the childkiller, named Pickman, seems to radiate evil. So much so that other characters, including professional psychiatrists, can't even conceal their disgust for him. As the supernatural elements unfold, this does make sense. How much of Zhu's decisions is otherworldly influence and how much is character motivation (including his decision to kill the killer)? This never gets fully defined to me, which could have been a flaw, but it seemed to work on me. I was chomping at the bit to see whether and when Pickman, Zhu of any of the freaking main characters would die. It's like I got caught up in the story's own mania.

The characters also help carry a reader with some of the plot's lack of clarity. Everyone in the story seems pretty well thought out, and Becker's dialogue is genuinely funny in several spots, like the police chief's translating the mystic chanting as racial slurs (well, it did borrow from Lovecraft). And of course Rea's art, while incorporating several styles, did carry the implied emotional tone and tension. I want to see this paring put out something again, maybe with a more surprising plot twist, which hopefully won't lose the manic energy I found in these pages.