Graphic Novel A Day: Kane Vol. 6: Partners

Writer/Artist: Paul Grist
Company: Image Comics
Price: $16.99 ($11.55 at Amazon)

Picking up nicely where Volume 5 left off, Kane Vol. 6 continues to flash back to the events that caused Kane to become a pariah in the department, as well as mirroring them with a modern "devil's bargain" that his current partner has to make with Oscar Darke to find her former partner. As always, Grist mixes experimental storytelling and quirky touches with straightforward cop stories, and as always, the results are very entertaining. Partners is a weaker offering than Vol. 5, if only because the longer story format doesn't have the same "get in, get out" punch that the short stories of Vol. 5 had, but it's still a great read. When I finished, I was disappointed, realizing that there's no Kane on the horizon anytime real soon... and I think it might be time to finally go pick up Jack Staff Vol. 2, and the recently arrived Vol. 3... only then I'll have no Grist to look forward to for a while.

Graphic Novel A Day: Kane Vol. 5 - The Untouchable Rico Costas

Writer/Artist: Paul Grist
Company: Image Comics
Price: $13.99 ($11.89 at Amazon)

I enjoy Paul Grist's British-flavored superhero anthology Jack Staff, but I *love* his quirky cop procedural Kane. I'd forgotten how much until I finally got into the last two volumes I've bought, one of which was recent and one of which has been sitting on my shelf for a while. Kane has a heavy Frank Miller influence, even going so far as to have a terrific short story in this volume that references and in some ways lampoons a lot of Miller's Sin City, but if I had to describe Kane in shorthand, I'd say it's more like NYPD Blue done by David E. Kelley and Will Eisner. Sure, the gritty police procedural is there, in the form of Kane's tortured backstory about killing his corrupt partner, but there are also bizarre characters like the self-serving blowhard mayor (not far from Family Guy's Mayor Adam West), a blind hitman who's a direct reference on Daredevil and a crimelord named Oscar Darke who "speaks" with a thick phonetic Southern accent. Add in Kane's stylistic touches, like doing a whole issue in the format of a tabloid newspaper when the story focuses on a tabloid reporter, or his skewed Sin City impression in "Fwankie's Big Night Out" and you've got a terrific and unusual book.