Crime and Mystery Genre in Graphic Novels

Definition

The crime and mystery genre has played a significant role in developing comic books and graphic novels. Widely popular in other media, crime stories have largely been marginalized in American sequential art, primarily because of changes and controversies within the comics industry.

Introduction

Tales of crime and criminals are widespread. Most cultures have mythic tales that involve wily thieves and trickster con men, and it is no surprise that crime is one of the oldest and most enduring genres in the mass media. Crime and mystery works have played a particularly significant role in the comics industry, influencing the industry's development while also serving as fuel for those who considered comics harmful to society.

Defining the genre is difficult. During the anti-comics controversy of the 1950s, some critics considered any comic in which a crime occurred to be a crime comic. The genre would thus range from violent gangster comics to the relatively innocuous Disney comics in which the Beagle Boys attempt to rob Scrooge McDuck. A more accurate but facile definition is that a crime story is focused on a crime or series of crimes. This still leaves several well-defined genres (horror, kung-fu, Western, superhero) in which crimes are narratively important because they allow other aspects of these genres to exist. A better definition is that crime stories are thematically and narratively about the commission or investigation of a crime or series of crimes. By extension, works concerning the activities of criminals and those who investigate crimes, be they police officers, private detectives, amateur investigators, or crime scene analysts, would also be part of the genre.

The popularity of the crime and mystery genre in American comic books and graphic novels has been cyclical. How and how often the crime genre has been represented in comic books has mainly been shaped by three events:

• The adoption of the Comics Code in 1954
• The development of the direct market in the 1980s
• The rise of the graphic novel and the bookstore market in the 2000s

Pre-Comics Code Crime Comics

Drawing on both comic strips and the lurid pulp magazines of the 1920s and 1930s, crime comics became popular when the initial popularity of superhero comics began to decline after World War II. By many accounts, crime (though often conflated with horror) was the most popular genre in the late 1940s and early 1950s. There were several different types of crime comics during this period. The most common were lurid tales of colorful gangsters and their curvy girlfriends. While the message of these comics was theoretically anticrime, in practice, the stories often glorified their protagonists' violent exploits and outlaw lifestyles. Though there were some police-based series, crime comics were mainly anthologies that introduced new gangs and gangsters in each issue, showcased their crimes, and then ended with their deaths or imprisonment. Among the most well-known of these comics were Lev Gleason Publications' Crime Does Not Pay and Fox Feature Syndicate's Murder Incorporated.

A second type of crime comic featured the incursion of crime into the everyday life of the middle class, typically due to a love affair gone wrong or an impulsive decision made by the protagonist. This style of comic, typified by EC Comics' Crime SuspenStories, was socially subversive because it undercut the perceived desirability and safety of middle-class life. While this type of narrative dominated the EC titles, stories of middle-class people led astray by sex or drugs into a life of crime also populated the other crime anthology titles.

After rising to prominence in the early 1950s, the crime and horror genres—and, by extension, the entire comic book industry—were drawn into a vortex of rising social concern about juvenile delinquency. In response to this concern, the industry adopted a code of self-regulation to be enforced by the Comics Code Authority, a branch of the newly formed Comics Magazine Association of America. The Comics Code prohibited certain depictions of violence and any sympathetic treatment of criminals or crimes. In the immediate postcode period, larger publishers reacted similarly to how the film industry had responded to the somewhat similar Motion Picture Production Code (or Hays Code)—by transforming its gangster comics into police comics. However, these were not particularly popular. Ultimately, crime comics, with a few odd exceptions, mostly television adaptations, had effectively disappeared from the American comic book industry by the mid-1950s.

The Era of Direct Sales and Independent Comics

Crime comics returned in the early 1980s following the advent of direct sales. Direct sales, a system in which retailers preordered comics on a nonreturnable basis, lowered the cost of entry into publishing and paved the way for the foundation of many new independent publishers. Marvel and DC Comics, historically the two largest publishers, were able to bring back genres that would have been less profitable under the previous system of distribution.

Eclipse Comics, one of the earliest influential independent publishers, initially brought crime back to comics with Max Allan Collins and Terry Beatty's character Ms. Tree. The private investigator debuted in Eclipse's multigenre Eclipse Magazine in 1981 and later moved to her series. Several other crime-related books followed, emerging from the burgeoning independent press. The RAW and Heavy Metal magazines included some European crime comics and independent publisher Fantagraphics Books published anthologies featuring crime stories. Even significant publishers resumed publishing crime comics, with Don McGregor and Gene Colan's Nathaniel Dusk published by DC Comics in two miniseries in 1984 and 1985.

As the direct market matured in the late 1980s and 1990s, many more crime comics were published, notably Frank Miller's Sin City series (1991-2000), Greg Rucka and Steve Lieber's Whiteout (1998), and David Lapham's Stray Bullets (1995-2005). Published in black and white by independent publishers, these titles were heavily influenced by film noir, just like the European crime comics. This period also saw a trend toward the publication of stand-alone graphic novels; DC's graphic novel imprint Paradox Press produced a crime series that included John Wagner and Vince Locke's A History of Violence (1997) and Collins and Richard Piers Rayner's Road to Perdition (1998).

While the crime genre never became overly popular during the direct sales, its reappearance could have been more surprising. Direct sales allowed the comic book industry to become much more profitable. The print-to-order economics of direct sales allowed publishers to produce comics in various genres. However, superhero, crime, and science-fiction comics remained most popular. At the same time, this development led comics to give up its status as a mass medium. Comic bookstores catering specifically to fans of the medium became the primary source of sales. In contrast, newsstand sales and other venues that attracted casual readers declined.

Crime Graphic Novels in the Bookstore Market

In the early years of the twenty-first century, the trade book market became a significant sales channel for graphic novels, supplementing the shrinking comic book store market. This change helped bring graphic novels more cultural prominence and the attention of wider audiences. An increasing number of trade paperback and hardcover graphic novels, originals, and collections of previously serialized comics appeared on bookstore shelves. Graphic novels moved out of the humor or children's areas and into dedicated sections of bookstores and libraries. This was driven, at least in part, by the popularity of manga. These Japanese graphic novels cover various genres, including crime and mystery.

The move to bookstores has had mixed effects on the crime genre of graphic novels. The genre is popular in the book market, and exposure to wider audiences has benefited the comics industry. The bookstore market reduces the superhero genre's advantage in comic book stores. However, it also opens up the field to many other genres. As graphic novels in bookstores are generally mixed without regard for genre, it can be difficult for crime and mystery graphic novels to stand out among all the others. Still, the shift to the bookstore market was significant in the major publishers' decisions to publish crime graphic novels such as Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips's Criminal (2006- ) and Jason Aaron and R. M. Guéra's Scalped (2007-2012). In 2009, DC established a line of original crime graphic novels through its Vertigo Crime imprint.

Impact

The crime and mystery genre has had a significant impact on the comics industry as a whole. Crime and horror were at the forefront of the 1950s controversy about comics that led to the creation of the Comics Code. The code restricted the possible genres for graphic narrative, making it harder for comics to compete with the rise of television. The code and the subsequent rise of the comic book store market led to the prevailing association of comic books with the superhero genre.

The visual influence of film noir came to graphic novels through the crime genre. European crime albums such as José Antonio Muñoz and Carlos Sampayo's Alack Sinner series and the independent crime comics of the 1980s featured noir elements such as lighting and shadow that were particularly effective in black-and-white comics. This style crept into other comic genres, appearing in superhero titles such as Daredevil and Batman and becoming a common visual approach for comics of the grim and gritty style popular during the 1990s.

Like much of the comic book industry's output, crime and mystery comic books and graphic novels have proved a fertile ground for licensing, with crime stories frequently adapted to other media. Sin City, Whiteout, A History of Violence, and Road to Perdition were all made into feature films. Similarly, the popularity of the crime genre in other media has led to the publication of graphic novel adaptations of crime and mystery works such as Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories. Artist Darwyn Cooke has created graphic novels adapted from Richard Stark's Parker crime novels, and mystery authors Ian Rankin and Jason Starr have written graphic novels for Vertigo's graphic crime line.

The 2010s and 2020s have seen the emergence of contemporary crime-genre graphic novels. 100 Bullets centers on the topic of revenge, with ts primary characterssuch as the lead character, Agent Graveshave all suffered injustices and seek to rectify their harm through violence. The Good Asian features the fictional detective Edison Hark, a Chinese American. The narrative takes place in the Chinatown district. Hark is called to battle violent crime as well as discrimination and his own self-doubts. Although several decades removed from its original publication, Frank Miller's Sin City has made a comeback and reverberated with newer audiences. The crime and mystery genre in graphic novels continues to evolve as its audience's preferences shift.

Bibliography

"15 Best Crime Comics to Read, from Criminal to Sin City." Comic Book Treasury, 17 May 2024, www.comicbooktreasury.com/best-crime-comics-to-read. Accessed 17 July 2024.

Benton, Mike. Crime Comics: The Illustrated History. Dallas, Taylor, 1993.

Gabilliet, Jean-Paul. Of Comics and Men: A Cultural History of American Comic Books. Translated by Bart Beaty and Nick Nguyen. Jackson, University Press of Mississippi, 2010.

Keller, Rich. "The Most Influential Crime Comics Of All Time." CBR, 17 July 2021, www.cbr.com/most-influential-crime-comics-all-time. Accessed 17 July 2024.

Land, Ashley. "10 Best Crime Thriller Comics." CBR, 15 Dec. 2022, www.cbr.com/thrilling-crime-comics. Accessed 17 July 2024.

Nyberg, Amy Kiste. Seal of Approval: The History of the Comics Code. Jackson, University Press of Mississippi, 1998.