The Fade Out #1

The Fade Out #1

 

Having not read comics since I was young, I was not sure what was currently on the comic market that would appeal to me. The Fade Out by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips is a comic noir which so far has appealed to my interest in murder mystery, character development and an appealing story line. The first edition’s cover was a major selling factor for me. I know they say you should never judge a book by its cover but in this case the comic has delivered what the cover image promised.

 

The Cover:

The cover of my copy is bright, blood red, which suggests murder, a major theme in comic noir. The title sits on top of a white substance that represents a plume of cigarette smoke. Smoking is an iconic common activity in comic noir among detectives, bad guys, washed up writers and mysterious sexy women. Running down from the plume of smoke, a white liquid residue runs down over the image of a black typewriter. The trail the liquid leaves behind becomes translucent with an eerie blue tinge, so that the details of the typewriter can be seen through the spill lines. The eerie blue transparency reminds me of looking through a ghost. One of the spill trails pours off the typewriter and onto the red cover and bleeds off the edge, leaving a stark white trail, as if the colour has been bleached out. This part of the image suggests wiping out evidence. A murderer may clean a murder scene with bleach so as not to leave behind any evidence. The keys of the typewriter being visibly clearer through the spill lines suggest that what someone tries to hide, correct or cover up cannot be hidden and most likely will be discovered. The white spill lines also remind me of white out, which is a common substance used by writers to correct or cover up mistakes. Covering up mistakes or a murder is another common theme in comic noir. It is obvious that there is paper in the typewriter, which should be bright white but instead the paper is the red of the cover. This symbolically ties the character writer in the story to the murder story. The typewriter appears as if it were submerged in water with a red light shining on the water. The typewriter being the center image on the cover suggests a dark, story that involves a writer. The title font is black narrow letters similar to the slim lettering popular with the art deco era, which fits the 1940’s time period of the comic story setting.

The Inside Cover:

The inside cover is a reverse of the cover page. A red blot on a white background. The red blot looks like water colour red paint or ink. Red ink is used in editing to make corrections, which suits the comic since the main character is a writer. As the red substance trails down the page it begins to look more like blood as it becomes darker in tone and collects in certain places adding to the darkness of colour and providing a textual aspect similar to blood. There are dark red dots spattered about the red blot which also provoke the image of drops of blood. There is an image of the Hollywood hills in tones of grey and white on the second page of the two page spread. Instead of the popular Hollywood sign saying HOLLYWOOD, the sign says HOLLYWOODLAND. This is metaphorical considering Hollywood is a real place, but Hollywoodland is not. The components of the movie industry are well known in Hollywood and generate a stereotype of Hollywood being fake because everything created and done is all just for the movies, none of it is real. Tying into the idea of Hollywoodland not being real, the word “land” also suggests a theme park, full of fake reality. The image being in tones of grey and white ties into Hollywood films being done in black and white during the time period when the story takes place.

 

The Characters:

The next page opens with a cast of characters. Six characters are listed with black and white headshots, including their name, profession and characteristics. Some of the character's profile pictures look stereotypical to their profession. Earl Rath is a movie star and womanizer. His picture shows him as a handsome, middle-aged playboy. Valeria Sommers is an up-and-coming starlet and in her profile picture her chin is tilted down appearing shy, innocent and naive. Lastly, Phil Brodsky is the Studio’s Head of Security and his profile picture shows him with a wide neck, strong chiselled jaw, army haircut, and tough guy appearance. I feel more can be seen and known in the pictures of the characters than is briefly stated in the character description.

Comic Theory:

The story begins with a blacked out panel with the title words The Wild Party in white font. This blackout panel ties in nicely to the preceding panel where the reader finds the character Charlie Parish fully dressed waking up in the bathtub after blacking out drunk. Text is not required to talk about Charlie’s blackout because of the intertextuality between the first two panels. A caption narrates a flashback Charlie recalls. The preceding panels have captions explaining the flashback. The third panel caption has the bolded word “blackout” adding to Charlie coming to after blacking out. Nine panels show different images related to Charlie’s flashback of the mandatory blackout that took place in Los Angeles after Pearl Harbour.

 

 

 

The second panel on page two shows Charlie’s ex-wife hiding in the closet and Charlie standing outside the closet not offering her comfort; instead he goes outside to smoke. This classifies as a hermeneutic image because it tells the reader something more about Charlie without having to be explained in narration, which classifies as a psychological and intertextual reference to Charlie’s past and personality. This sequence of panels represents non-sensory diegetic images. The red tip of Charlie’s cigarette glowing in the dark gives the reader the visual clue of Charlie inhaling. The motion of inhaling would be really difficult to illustrate and would require multiple panels so comics use the glowing red tip of a cigarette as a universally known symbol for a character inhaling.

 

Charlie is looking up at the night sky full of stars. An image of a starlit sky and a trail of smoke from Charlie’s cigarette complements the caption box saying “There were no planes up in those skies, just stars you normally couldn’t see”, metaphorically speaking of the celebrity stars that can always be seen in Hollywood, whereas the physical stars in the night sky cannot be seen because the city lights blinded the night sky from view. This is another use of an intertextual reference and visual metaphor provided by the use of a hermeneutic image. The last panel shows Charlie sitting up in the bathtub trying to get his bearing's, having pulled the shower curtain down in his attempt to get up. The caption box in this panel says “something in the air made it easier to believe lies,” suggesting that the false reality that Hollywood provides makes it easier to believe the lies that people believe are true. This panel contains an intertextual hermeneutic image that reminds the reader of junk newsstand publications that tell scandalous fake stories about celebrities to encourage people to buy the publication. Something making it easier to believe lies also suggests a cover-up, setting the readers awareness to be on the watch for clues and to read between the lines as the story progresses.

 

This is where I will cut out so as not to create a spoiler for those who have not read the comic. Enjoy! J