After a successful Kickstarter, Harker returns in Harker: The Black Hound Part One from Time Bomb Comics.
This is an excellent beginning of a new mystery, which allows established and new readers to get right into the story. There are some fun looks at classic mystery tropes here and there are some good comedic moments. In between all this, is a murder mystery that looks interesting and looks to escalate quickly.
There is some excellent artwork, with some great pieces and expressions. I feel that we react the same as them all.
The mystery itself starts out simply enough, but there is something more happening with some parts of the mystery to still be exposed as the body count rises.
Harker: The Black Hound Part One out this January
The cult comic series starts its second storyline
“Harker is a welcome reappearance of an accessible mature British comic series that knows not
just what it wants to pastiche but why it wants to do it.” ‐ Tripwire Magazine
Since coming to Time Bomb Comics in 2019, dark comedy crime series Harker has quickly become a favourite of the British Indie comic scene. This new storyline is the second in the series and will be published January 2022, launching Time Bomb’s 15th anniversary year.
DCI Harker is enjoying a holiday in Whitby, and the last thing he wants is to be drawn into solving a murder. So when a famous novelist is killed right in front of him, he decides he’s a suspect and relaxes on the dodgems. DS Critchley, however, needs his help, especially when another body washes in with the tide. Who is the murderer, what does it have to do with this spooky old coastal town, and how does it involve the huge dog seen on the Moors?
Following on from the huge success of the previous story, Harker: The Book of Solomon, Time Bomb Comics and creators Vincent Danks (Gravestown, Doctor Who Magazine, Red Dwarf Magazine) and Roger Gibson (Torchwood, Gravestown, Mad Girl), and colourist Andrew Richmond (Gravestown, Dead by Dawn) are excited to bring this new chapter to fans. Like the previous Harker books, this graphic novel is part one of two: a full colour, sixty‐eight page perfect bound volume of this thrilling crime series ‐ a unique homage to classic tv detective shows, filled with humour, wit, adventure and mystery.
DCI Harker is a homage to the classic tv detectives: he has the shabby dress sense of Columbo, drives a car Morse would love, has the grumpy demeanour of Gene Hunt from Ashes to Ashes, possesses the quirky oddness of Monk and displays the dazzling brilliance of Sherlock Holmes. He’s a classic hard‐boiled English copper in his late fifties: moody, antisocial and almost incapable of functioning in the modern‐day police force. DS Critchley, hisfaithful assistant, is hisfoil ‐ modern and smart with an eye for the girls, but equally strange and eccentric.
Time Bomb Comics chief, Steve Tanner spoke about what makes Harker such a unique series, and why he thinks the series resonates with readers in the UK and worldwide:
“Much of what makes Harker such a great read is because Gibson & Danks aren’t trying to reinvent
the wheel or pander to perceived trends. Instead, they’re concentrating on telling brilliant crime
stories, using the familiar detective tropes everyone has seen time after time on the TV screen to
create a thoroughly engaging and entertaining comic. The tone of it, the style of it, the absolute
sheer British‐ness of it ‐ It’s a delight to be publishing it under the Time Bomb Comics banner!”
Book Details:
68 Pages, Full Colour, Perfect Bound
Website: https://timebombcomics.com/
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