Criminal 3: The Dead and the Dying

The third entry in the Criminal series is itself made up of three separate stories that are linked by way of certain recurring characters. In other words, you could think of The Dead and the Dying as a sort of microcosm of Criminal as a whole.

All the stories are set in 1972, so they deal with a previous generation to the characters we met in Coward and Lawless. Though to be honest, nothing here feels a bit different from the later stories. I don’t think Center City changes very much. The middle story, “A Wolf Among Wolves,” is about Teeg Lawless, the father of Tracy and Ricky (and yes, it’s yet another story of a heist gone wrong). Then we get the back story of how Sebastian Hyde came to be the crime boss of Center City. But the main connecting thread has to do with a woman named Danica (whose pussy is “a deadly weapon”) and how she is abused and let down by various men.

It’s another effective comic. I especially liked the black beats that interrupt Teeg’s section. That’s a technique that might not have worked, but Brubaker and Phillips don’t set a foot wrong with this material and I thought the interrupted visuals added to the sense of Teeg’s mental and moral disintegration. Otherwise, it’s a comic that fills in blanks and adds to the sense of a tightening web of fate being drawn around these people. It’s funny how each comic ends with the words “The End,” as it’s clear that nothing is ever over in this town.

Graphicalex