Torso

/ Alex Good

Torso

Torso is a six-part series based on the Cleveland Torso Murderer investigation. Though the killer was never apprehended, it’s assumed that he killed and then dismembered some 12 victims in the 1930s, leaving their body parts scattered around Cleveland (for fuller accounts of what happened, see here and here). So we’re definitely in true-crime noir territory here, as if you couldn’t tell from the stark black-and-white art inking every face half in shadow.

There’s also a documentary feel to the proceedings, underscored by cityscapes backlit with vintage photos. And for the most part, at least in the early going, creators Brian Michael Bendis and Marc Andreyko stick fairly close to the record, even including a gallery of newspaper archive clippings and pictures with this edition (though there’s no bibliography or suggested further reading; even 300 had suggestions for further reading!). On the other hand, some names have changed and made-up characters have been introduced. The drama is heightened and compressed. And at the end a climactic shootout in a burning human abattoir that is very Hollywood is wholly invented. But overall it’s not bad on that front. Just remember that it is a fictionalization, a historical graphic novel.

The presentation plays off different tensions. The separate chapters begin by taking us in and out of focus and commercial stippling. As with the shadow – and there is a lot of shadow in this book! – it seems the harder we look the less we see. Another tension is between static and dynamic. Stencil-like figures are repeated identically throughout the book, sometimes throughout entire scenes of dialogue and sometimes reappearing in different scenes in different chapters. But this stationary feeling is given a spin by a layout that zigs and zags around the page, or that requires you to turn the book on its side to read. One scene, Eliot Ness’s interview with the killer “Gaylord Sundheim,” even forces you to turn it all the way around as it’s written in a spiral.

That spiral page (or double-page spread) will annoy some people, but I thought it had a thematic point and worked well playing off the circling movement with the way figures are repeated over and over. Plus, it’s a one-off.

This is a stylish but not artificially artsy book that I rated very highly, though I’ll concede that it’s probably not for everyone. Don’t get hung up on it being an accurate account of the Cleveland torso murders and just enjoy it for the dark entertainment that it is.

Graphicalex

16 thoughts on “Torso”

  1. I can’t help imagining waht a figure you must cut in the local coffee shop with a copy of Torso and your cuddly lion bookmark.

    It’s maybe a style thing, but do you need a full-stop after using a exclamation mark? I thought the exclamation mark doubles up, but I’m often wrong about these things, as you you.

    Like

    Reply

    • The cuddly lion lures the unwary in. Then by morning all that’s left are torsos.

      I don’t mind using an exclamation mark at the end of a parenthetical statement, as here. But people can argue endlessly over that I guess.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

Leave a comment