Blue Estate is Image's newest pulp detective comic book in the vein of Hawaiian Dick - though not as good. The art is alternately deceptively simple and just plain lazy, and the writing tends to follow. The story and cast is just too large for the approach writer, Andrew Osborne, chose.
Hawaiian Dick, and the more successful noir detective fiction, comes with an implied history - a connection to their literary forefathers. This connection transcends genre and style and comes across in confidence. While I may not know what Marlowe is up to, to use another staple from the canon, I am confident that he knows and that I will learn whenever I need to know. Furthermore, I am confident that this will not be an easy-way-out for the writer or protagonists.
This is genuine; it isn't forced or faked, and you can feel its authenticity. More than just the tropes of the genre, these works contain the noir attitude - hardboiled detectives and boozy dames are the story, not just nostalgic memes. Blue Estate can't decide if it is telling a pulp story or making fun of one.
Blue Estate's cynicism provides the pretense of depth, but writer Andrew Osborne is afraid to commit. The story has legs, but every time it gets going, the author interrupts to remind us that it's just a comic book. DUN DUN! It's hard to tell if this is because he is a weak writer or because he lacks faith in the story but, less than half an hour after reading it, I can't recall much of what happened.
© C Harris Lynn, 2011
A rambling melange of pop-culture.
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