THE BLACK DIAMOND DETECTIVE AGENCY
by Eddie Campbell & illustrated by Eddie Campbell
A visually stunning graphic narrative with all sorts of complicated plot twists.
The latest from visual artist Campbell (The Fate of the Artist, 2006, etc.) represents something of a show-business reversal. Where it has been commonplace for Hollywood to adapt graphic novels and comic-book series into movies, this collaboration finds Campbell working from (or “inspired by”) a screenplay by C. Gaby Mitchell. The result is a turn-of-the-century (19th to 20th) pulp thriller concerning a railroad attack, a domestic desertion, a series of double (or even triple) crosses by gangs and a conspiracy that ultimately reaches so high that the Black Diamond Detective Agency has no idea what it’s really investigating. The complications have implications that reverberate a century later, but even those who have trouble following the plot will marvel at Campbell’s visual detail, use of color (particularly an explosive red) and extensive stretches of wordless panels.
The veteran artist rises to a new challenge.