Review time! with ‘Cosmic Detective’

“He snatched at you and you match his cigarette; she pulls the eyes out with a face like a magnet”

Original graphic novels from Image always seem a bit weird – I don’t know why – but here’s one by Jeff Lemire, Matt Kindt (who wrote it), and David Rubín (who drew, colored, and lettered it). The flatting was done by Xulia Pisón and Kike J. Díaz. Let’s have a look!

We’re all experienced with the “Chinatown Trope” – I don’t know if it has a name, and I know it was around long before that movie, but you know what I’m talking about: the detective story in which the detective figures everything out but can’t do a damned thing about it. I assume it’s appealing to writers not because their wives were killed by Charles Manson but because it allows them to show the casual and banal horrors of a world where justice doesn’t mean anything, and it makes them feel … smart? superior? smug? I don’t know, but it’s a trope, and while I don’t love it, I admit that you can squeeze a masterpiece out of it if you’re doing it right, so whatever. Cosmic Detective is not a masterpiece, but Lemire and Kindt are good enough to use this trope without making it seem too bleak.

I guess I spoiled this, as you now know that justice, such as it is, is not served in this book, but I hope I did not spoil it, because you don’t know exactly how justice is not served. It’s a fun conceit – an unnamed detective who works for a strange bureau headed by masked people in a futuristic/decrepit city (it’s not steampunk, but it’s certainly not Jetsons, either) gets a case: someone has killed a god. Oh dear. Apparently, in this world, gods are real and often mingle with the little people, so although they’re supposed to not be able to die, the fact that they actually exist isn’t a big deal. Detective ______ is told by his bosses that it’s happened before, once, right before an agent our detective was supposed to partner with disappeared. You know he’s going to show up, though, because that’s how fiction works! As our hero peels the onion of the god’s death, he learns some disturbing things, and eventually, he finds out the truth. But what will happen to him then?!?!?

This is not a superb comic, as some of Lemire’s and Kindt’s have been, but it’s a lot more fun than you might think (I mean, yes, the ending is bleak if looked at one way, but such if life). First, I love a good detective story that knows the clichés and has fun with them, and Lemire and Kindt certainly know the clichés and have fun with them. Our detective has cigarettes in his pocket, but they are very unusual cigarettes. He does some legwork in a library, but it’s an odd library, to say the least. He drives a vintage Chevy … that flies. When he gets to the end of his quest, he discovers, basically, Kirby’s Fourth World. While the actual mystery is fine, Kindt and Lemire have a groovy time leading us through this weird world, and it makes the narrative work much better. Plus, Detective ______ has a wife and kid, and he seems perfectly happy with them, which is a bit unusual in detective fiction. The devil is in the details, I hear, and the details of this book are nifty, and it makes the story work better. Even though we never know his name, Lemire and Kindt do a good job making the detective relatable, so as readers, we start to root for him. That’s never a bad thing.

Rubín’s excellent art certainly helps. Rubín has a nice, cartoony vibe to his line work, which doesn’t preclude details, so his characters are malleable while also looking lived-in and beaten up by the world, and it’s a good mix. Our detective looks slightly haggard to begin with, as the art leans into the clichés of the genre as much as the writing, but Rubín adds to him, showing the easing of his stress when he’s around his family, for instance (and, in a nice bit of continuity, shows him with stubble at the end of a long day and then cleanly-shaven the next day). As he peels the onion, his everyman appearance becomes more crucial, as he’s beaten up by some odd people when he follows a lead and then meets up with Kirby’s gods in the latter half of the book, as his “normality” is a good way to ground the book and have every strange character revolve around him so that we don’t spin off to complete madness. As good as the early parts of the book are (and they are, with Rubín doing nice work with the seedy/futuristic vibe of the city and showing the bits of magic/mad science that exist throughout it), when the detective meets the gods, Rubín and the colorists really have fun, going nuts with character designs, page designs, and lurid coloring, which disorients our hero and, perhaps more importantly, the reader (in a good way). It’s a terrific way to show how the detective’s life has been upended and why the ending, while very much of the “Chinatown” trope, is not necessarily the worst thing in the world. The writers do a decent job setting it up, but it wouldn’t hit as hard if not for Rubín and his designs.

Ultimately, this is the tiniest bit disappointing simply because Lemire and Kindt don’t do too much different from the standard detective fiction drama, even though they do poke around in some interesting directions. It’s certainly interesting to read, and it looks very cool, and it’s a good read. I just feel like there’s some spark of genius missing, which I know Kindt and Lemire have shown in some of their other work, so I just felt like there was a missed opportunity. Still, it’s a pretty neat comic, and I’m certainly not going to tell you to avoid it, because detectives investigating weird murders is usually a formula for good fiction!

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ½ ☆ ☆