Writer Chip Zdarsky
Artist Jacob Phillips
In Newburn we are introduced to a private detective hired by a loose conglomerate of rival criminal factions to act as an independent arbiter for crimes that may affect the tenuous peace that they’ve imposed. In the debut issue Easton Newburn attempts to solve the murder of a former scion of a mafia family that had stolen drugs before leaving his organisation. Did Newburn’s own employers order a hit on their kin, or is he about to ignite a gang war with a rival faction?
A crime procedural that gives us an insight to the criminal underworld, Newburn shares a lot of conceptual DNA with works such as Brubaker and Phillips’ Criminal series in terms of genre, art style, and the more amoral attitude of the characters. Part of that DNA comes from Jacob Phillips’ (That Texas Blood) art, as he’s the son of Brubaker’s Criminal collaborator, as well as having been a part of many of their other works (Pulp, Cruel Summer, Kill or Be Killed, and even the 2019 run of Criminal). The washed out watercoloured style gives the art a distinctive pop and reality, almost akin to that of a court artist. Artistically and narratively, Newburn is a beautifully realised world.
However, the highlight here is certainly how much of the central character is established. Sure, there’s backfilling of character history to be done, but the first issue neatly lays the foundation. Chip Zdarsky (Daredevil) presents us with a character that is capable in terms of deductive reasoning, but also able to carry out the legwork needed to solve a case (be it working with an interviewee to narrow down a timeframe, or tracing the likely route of a fleeing perp). Easton Newburn is also demonstrated as someone unafraid of exercising force to solve the case, be that physical violence, or a rather more subtle use of implied consequences. That juxtaposition and the moral ambiguity of the character certainly make him interesting, and there’s a marked curiosity raised by seeing such an obviously capable character placed in such an obviously tenuous position. After all, the world that is created is placed on a knife’s edge, and it can’t be long before that illusion of peace is shattered.
And therein lies the potential interest for the ongoing series. Newburn’s position of power comes from the balance struck between the various crime factions and the police, but any substantive shift in that balance places the character in potential danger, and there is no way such a tentative peace can last. Newburn shows us a glimpse into that seamy underworld, but it also exists on the promise that we’ll see that all descend into chaos, despite the titular character’s attempts to hold that at bay. It’s a promising and fertile ground for drama, and one that we’ll be interested to see how it plays out.
Worth checking out if you are a lover of neo noir or crime stories.
