‘Friday’: Investigating Ed Brubaker and Marcos Martín’s “post-YA” teen detective comic
On April 15, 2020, digital comics publisher Panel Syndicate released the debut issue of Friday, by writer Ed Brubaker and artist Marcos Martín, with colorist Muntsa Vicente. The comic features 18 year old college student Friday Fitzhugh, who once solved mysteries in the town of Kings Hill alongside her teen detective partner, Lancelot Jones. Described by Brubaker as a “post-YA” comic, Friday mixes occult horror with teen detective fiction to produce a compelling story that also provides a rare exploration of character maturation in the teen detective genre.
The comic opens with Friday returning home from college for Christmas; she and Lancelot are immediately reunited on a case, although Friday is not happy about it. Something happened between Friday and Lancelot before Friday left for college; Friday wants to talk to Lance about it, although she dreads having the conversation, while Lance, who has remained in Kings Hill, is focused on apprehending teenage villain Wilson “Weasel” Wadsworth, who has stolen an ancient stone dagger possessing apparent supernatural properties.
There is tension between Friday (who wants to have a conversation about her and Lance’s relationship and past) and Lancelot, who is focused on his crime-fighting adventure. Martín’s art reflects this tension and the emotional separation of the two characters, with Friday often depicted at a distance from Lance — she rides in the back of the car, while Lance and local law officer Sheriff Bixby are in the front seats, and she often hangs back or chases ahead relative to Lance and Bixby as they pursue Weasel in the snow-covered woods. Vicente’s contrasting bright and dark color palettes highlights this tension.
This tension between adult concerns and juvenile adventures highlights the thematic evolution of the “young detective” genre. Young detective fiction originated in the 1860s, with the serialized “penny dreadful” adventures of Ernest Keen, a homeless street kid who works with a police inspector to solve crimes. The first literary “girl detective” did not appear until 1915, with the debut of 17 year old Violet Strange in The Golden Slipper and Other Problems for Violet Strange. Since then, other young detectives have appeared in literature to great acclaim and longevity: Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, and Encyclopedia Brown, among others.
Discussing the evolution of young detective fiction from its penny dreadful origins to modern stories, author Lucy Andrew observes that while earlier child detective fiction explored the transition between childhood and adulthood, more recent “…child detectives are positioned firmly within the childhood realm and, while they may at times clash with adults, particularly criminals, there is never a clear sense that they are moving towards adult identities or the adult world. Detection is here linked with childhood adventure more explicitly than it is with the social, moral and intellectual development necessary to prepare for adulthood.”
In modern stories, kid detectives are not allowed to grow up, and Lancelot is reflective of this trend; unlike Friday, he does not appear to be moving towards an “adult identity.” He remains in town, solving cases and having adventures, chauffeured around by Bixby, with no apparent identity outside of his investigative activities, while Friday is forming new relationships and a new identity at college.
In Friday’s backmatter, Brubaker acknowledges that the comic’s intent is to explore the adult identities of kid detectives, and that he has been pondering this concept for years: “From the time I was 25 or so, I had this vague dream of writing a book like this… Something that felt gothic but grounded, like a post-YA book, where the kids that solved mysteries and confronted ghosts and monsters also grew up and had the same problems we all do, the same struggles, and bad habits.”
While not explicit, it appears Brubaker first explored the idea of a grown-up kid detective in his acclaimed crime comic, Criminal. In the 2011 series Criminal: The Last of the Innocent, wealthy businessman Phil Doolittle hires private detective Britt Black to investigate Doolittle’s son-in-law. Although little is revealed about his background, Black is a capable investigator, and, when confronting his suspect, reveals that “I’ve been catching people in lies since I was twelve years old.”
This declaration hints that Black was a skilled investigator as a child. Responding to a fan letter in Criminal #2 (February 2019) inquiring about his interest in teen detective fiction, Brubaker states that Britt Black’s full name is “Brittanica Black” and that the character is an analog of Encyclopedia Brown: “I have thought about teen detectives, for sure, and there’s even an analog of Encyclopedia Brown in THE LAST OF THE INNOCENT — Brittanica Black is his name.”
With Black, who appears in Criminal as an adult, Brubaker does not explore the emotional challenges the young detective faced transitioning to adulthood, as he does with Friday. However, the differences in maturity and interests are not the only cause of tension between Friday and Lance. The dynamics of their partnership are also an issue.
The teamwork between Friday and Lancelot suggests that Lance is the leader of their duo, with Lance providing cerebral contributions while Friday is the “muscle,” pursuing and subduing suspects as needed. Young detectives, with different skills, working together is a common feature of the genre, with examples including author Enid Blyton’s The Secret Seven series and Robert Arthur Jr.’s The Three Investigators books (readers of the latter series may find Lancelot Jones reminiscent of the young trio’s cerebral leader, Jupiter Jones). But Friday seems to resent that only her physical contributions are appreciated.
When Friday tells Lance and Bixby that she thinks she saw a girl in the woods, she is offended that Lance seems to imply she is imagining things. Also, when she confronts Weasel physically, she finds no joy in the challenge, like she did when she was younger. Friday is never given the opportunity to discuss her concerns with Lance.
Friday’s estrangement from Lance and his adventures is experienced in the intriguing New England coastal setting of Kings Hill, circa the 1970s, a community haunted by hidden Lovecraftian forces, ancient cursed artifacts, and human sacrifice. In the backmatter, Brubaker states that he hoped to “blend Lovecraft’s New England and Edward Gorey’s, playing with fairy tales and occult conspiracy theories”; Martín and Vicente neatly capture this creepy vision in their renderings of the setting and its characters.
The first chapter of Friday is an engrossing introduction to compelling characters and a spooky story, and the tensions that arise with the characters’ transition from youth to adulthood are as interesting as the narrative’s investigative adventure.
Notes and Further Reading:
Friday, Chapter 1: “The Girl in the Trees” (written by Ed Brubaker, illustrated and lettered by Marcos Martín, and colored by Muntsa Vicente) — available as a DRM-free digital purchase from Panel Syndicate for whatever you want to pay.
Criminal Vol. 6: The Last of the Innocent (written by Ed Brubaker, illustrated by Sean Phillips, colored by Val Staples and Dave Stewart)
Criminal #2 (February 2019; written by Ed Brubaker, illustrated by Sean Phillips, colored by Jacob Phillips) — Brubaker discusses Brittanica Black in the letter column.
“The Secret History of the Girl Detective” (by Stephanie Gorton Murphy, Smithsonianmag.com, March 8, 2016)
The Boy Detective in Early British Children’s Literature: Patrolling the Borders between Boyhood and Manhood (by Lucy Andrew, Palgrave Macmillan, 2017; the quote in the above article can be found on page 191)
The text and images above are the property of their respective owner(s), and are presented here for not-for-profit, educational , and review purposes only under the fair use doctrine of the copyright laws of the United States of America.
