The Black Monday Murders, Jonathan Hickman, And The Case For “More.”

Symbology. Power. Magic. Money. Murder.

These things all play an important role in Jonathan Hickman’s newest effort The Black Monday Murders, with artwork by Tomm Coker, published by Image.

Although typically a medium that is known for coming up with some of the most creative imagery and storylines, the thing about comics is, it’s a fairly predictable format. Panels and frames with artwork, in a grid setting, and you read the narration or dialog as you move panel by panel. Hickman looks to change that in a lot of his more recent work.

The first thing you notice about the first issue of Black Monday Murders is how thick it is; at least twice that of a normal comic issue. One of the reasons why it’s so thick is because it’s similar to a book in its aesthetic. You get an actual table of contents, you get what I would describe as “interludes”, you get an epilogue. You’re wondering what you got yourself into, with so much going on right at the outset. So much unknown, questions left unanswered. The best of any series accomplish this task; create a giant open world with many intricacies, and just tell the story. The reader grabs more detail and the entire story makes more sense, the longer the series runs; and you can go back to the earlier issues and re-read them with a new set of eyes. Video gamers refer to this as “replay value.”

The series begins right before Black Friday, the stock market crash of 1929. It’s apparent that there are a group of important and powerful men who are at the head of a bank, and in control; but there’s something else. Some sort of black magic, or alien power at work here. Possibly some secret religion, dedicated to controlling financial aspects of society? Graphs randomly inserted throughout pages tell you of who these men are, their family history, and even the background of stock market events, timelines. All of these details add to the experience, and make the comic so much more than just flipping pages and going from panel to panel.

Tomm Coker’s artwork is exactly the type of artwork I love, so this was easy for me to get immediately sucked into. It also seems like the type of artwork that Jonathan Hickman tends to gravitate to; realistic, detailed, and dark. It’s a perfect parallel for Hickman’s writing, which has the same exact attention to realism, detail and darkness. I’ve noticed he uses a lot of symbology in his work which is amazing. These are actual different languages, using symbols and hieroglyphics, to give you a greater sense of alien speech. You can tell he puts a lot of work into this. If the reader had a translation key/legend, you could literally read the symbols to see what was being said. Sometimes we get that in his work, and sometimes we don’t, or we have to wait for it… which adds to the suspense. For an interesting look at what he does in this sense, take a look at his recent work on the Avengers series through Marvel; The Avengers have never been more interesting and maturely written than when he worked on it. At times, it seems that Hickman should have been a scientist rather than a writer (and I believe he has a brother that works for NASA, so this wouldn’t be so strange).

All in all, The Black Monday Murders seems to be a murder mystery with an intriguing lead detective, and we get hints at him having a questionable past and family history. I expect great things from this series.

But more so than that, I believe other creators should take note of what Jonathan Hickman is doing. The comic medium can be so much more than just panels and art. So much more than just narration and dialog. It’s similar to what Mark Z. Danielewski did with his novel House Of Leaves… or even what E.E. Cummings did with poetry, or what the band Radiohead did with their career. Yes, I know that drawing a parallel between Radiohead and comic writing is a bit of a stretch — but the point is there. Break your medium out of its mold. Do something different. Throw your audience for a loop.

I own or have read a large portion of Hickman’s bibliography, and I personally recommend the below titles, all of which impressed the hell out of me:

• Secret (w/ Ryan Bodenheim) from Image
• God Is Dead (w/ Mike Costa & Di Amorim) from Avatar Press
• The Red Wing (w/ Nick Pitarra) from Image
• East Of West (w/ Nick Dragotta) from Image

Obviously he has a lot more than just these, and they’re mostly all great — which is why I will buy and read anything he puts out. His series The Manhattan Projects w/ Nick Pitarra has also received a lot of acclaim and currently has 4 volumes of trade paperbacks out. Recently he started on a series called The Dying & The Dead (w/ Ryan Bodenheim) through Image that was absolutely brilliant and blew me away, but it unfortunately stopped at issue 3 with a note towards the end saying it will return. I genuinely cannot wait, because the first 3 issues of this series were some of the best stuff I’ve ever read. These delays seem to happen to a lot of Hickman’s work, possibly due to how prolific he is.

Note to creators: be more like Hickman. Don’t be afraid to try something new, and experiment with the format. Comics shouldn’t all be just panels, artwork and words; they should be an experience. And with much of Hickman’s work, it most definitely is.

|DV.NWMN|

@dirtynouveau (IG, TWT, SC)