Blacksad: A Silent Hell
Written by Diaz Canales
Art by Juanjo Guarnido
English-language Edition Edited by Diana Schutz
Dark Horse Comics
U.S. Release Date: July 11, 2012
Cover Price: $19.99

Noir stories have been making yet another surge in American culture, and especially the comics world over the past few years, with Warren Ellis’ Fell, Richard Stark’s adaptation of the Parker novels, Cullen Bunn and Brian Hurtt’s The Damned, and seemingly everything Ed Brubaker touches ever being just a few shining examples. Adding to this stack of worthy reads, Dark Horse has mined the European market for a more traditional hard-boiled detective in writer Diaz Canales and artist Juanjo Guarnido‘s anthropomorphic creation, John Blacksad. Although the creative team is from Spain, they set Blacksad in the U.S. during 1950s and modeled him heavily on the archetype created by Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler.

The first three volumes of Blacksad have already been collected in something of an omnibus of their work, and now the fourth one, Blacksad: Silent Hell, has been released for the American market. As a bonus, this edition includes two Blacksad micro-shorts and nearly 40 pages of preliminary sketches with commentary by the artist.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #13
Story by Kevin Eastman and Tom Waltz
Script by Tom Waltz
Art by Andy Kuhn
Colors by Ronda Pattison
Letters by Shawn Lee
Covers by Andy Kuhn, Kevin Eastman, and Valerio Schiti
IDW Publishing
Release Date: August 22, 2012
Cover Price: $3.99

For those who have been following this latest incarnation of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the series is likely a revelation. When the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles license was sold to Nickelodeon, there was a lot of consternation and wringing of hands among comics fans that the new series would be another cash-in aimed at children. Of course there’s still pleasure in seeing the characters you have grown with once again, but writers Kevin Eastman and Tom Waltz have created something much closer to the original version, with enough tweaks that the series feels fresh and exciting enough to surprise you.

A lot of this work shows up in the turtles themselves. Their quirks — Donatello as the science geek, Leonardo the rigid leader, Raphael the hothead, Michelangelo the carefree bro — aren’t played up as such, but actually inform how each sees the world. They bicker and argue, not just for the sake of it, but because they disagree over how to handle a situation. Never before have they felt so distinct from each other and so fully realized as characters. When, for example, the turtles are presented with their own uniquely-colored masks, there’s a satisfying justification for it that helps build the themes of the story, and the differentiation feels earned. Elements like these are what makes the series fresh and familiar, and is the difference between reinterpretation and cash-in. Alright, sorry for gushing, now let’s get on to issue 13.