Homicide: The Graphic Novel, Part One

by David Simon, Philippe Squarzoni (Illustrator)

Overview

Homicide, the celebrated true crime-book from the creator of HBO's The Wire, is reenvisioned in this first volume of a gritty, cinematic graphic novel duology.

In 1988, journalist David Simon was given unprecedented access to the Baltimore Police Department’s homicide unit. Over the next twelve months, he shadowed detectives as they took on a slew of killings in a city where killings were common. Only the most heinous cases stood out–chief amongst them, the rape and murder of eleven-year-old Latonya Wallace.

Originally published in 1991, Simon’s Homicide became the basis for the acclaimed television show Homicide: Life on the Streets and inspired HBO’s The Wire. Now, this true-crime classic is reimagined as a gritty two-part graphic novel series.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250624628
Publisher:	23rd St.
Publication date:	07/25/2023
Series:	Homicide: The Graphic Novel , #1
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

David Simon is a Baltimore-based journalist, author and television producer. A former crime reporter for the Baltimore Sun, he is the creator of the celebrated HBO series The Wire, which depicts the political and socioeconomic fissures in an American city. His other television credits include the NBC drama Homicide and HBO’s The Corner, Generation Kill, Treme, Show Me A Hero, The Deuce, and The Plot Against America. The author of two books of narrative nonfiction, "Homicide" and "The Corner," Simon is a 2010 MacArthur Fellow.

Philippe Squarzoni spent most of his childhood in Ardèche and the island of Réunion, France. He has traveled internationally to participate in several humanitarian and anti-war campaigns. The author of many political graphic novels, his work includes Garduno, en temps de paix, Zapata, en temps de guerre, Dol, Un après-midi un peu couvert, and Saison brune, which received the Jury Prize at the Festival de Lyon and the Prix Léon de Rosen from the Académie française for its contribution to environmental awareness. Saison brune was later published in English as Climate Changed: A Personal Journey Through the Science.

Editorial Reviews

"The illustrated book from French graphic novelist Philippe Squarzoni, published this week—as adapted from the original in consultation with [David] Simon—is as beautifully stark as the hard-boiled Hollywood adaptations of another former Baltimore Sun reporter, legendary noir author James M. Cain." —The Washington Post

"A stark, arresting graphic novel that weds Simon’s account of facts and police personalities (alongside ample use of the quoted dialogue he preserved as well as his own descriptive prose) to visual and storytelling techniques somewhat reminiscent of Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Andreyko’s Torso: an unflinching depiction of a city at its darkest, conveyed in deep shadows and shades of gray." —Popverse

From the Publisher

2023-04-20
Graphic adaptation of the book that begat The Wire.

Journalist David Simon worked the police beat so assiduously in Baltimore that the chief eventually gave him a backstage pass to the homicide unit. In that role, Simon trailed homicide detectives as they worked their ways through mountains of paperwork and rivers of blood and gore. His 1991 book, Homicide, led to the TV series of the same name and underlay the HBO series The Wire, which he created—and which some critics argue is the best TV show ever. Squarzoni works faithfully in Simon’s noirish, jutting-jaw, exploding-brain milieu, following detectives whose hours alternate between tedium and terror. Set in the late 1980s, the book opens on a gallows-humor note, as one detective says to another, “He’s got a slow leak,” adding, for the benefit of the victim, “You’re gonna have to get a new head.” The mayhem doesn’t let up from there, while the period details reflect a police culture that was resolutely racist and sexist. When women were admitted onto the force, the resentful old boys called the newcomers “secretaries with guns,” and it’s telling that nearly every one of the detectives’ suspects, to say nothing of the victims, are people of color. Meanwhile, “the homicide unit remained a bastion of male law enforcement.” Throughout, there’s a sullen nostalgia to the beat. As Squarzoni, speaking for his period subjects, notes, “A quarter century ago, a law officer could fire his weapon without worrying whether the entrance wound would be anterior or posterior.” Following Simon’s example, Squarzoni also offers a closely detailed account of the fine points of police politics (nobody appreciates a martinet), the brutalizing of the poor and especially the homeless, and the terrible things people do to one another.

Skillfully drawn and written, with a perfectly rendered cliffhanger to set the stage for the next volume.

Kirkus Reviews