{"id":1463,"date":"2007-05-06T12:04:00","date_gmt":"2007-05-06T16:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/craigzablo.com\/?p=1463"},"modified":"2021-03-09T18:58:10","modified_gmt":"2021-03-09T22:58:10","slug":"last-of-the-independents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/?p=1463","title":{"rendered":"Last of the Independents"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>Last week I ordered two graphic novels that I have been meaning to get for literally years. The first, which I’ll talk about today, is Last of the Independents<\/span><\/a> by Matt Fraction<\/span> and Kieron Dwyer<\/span>.<\/span>I’d meant to purchase <\/span>Last of the Independents<\/span> when it was first published back in 2003<\/span>. I just never got around to it. But when Christopher Mills<\/span> posted<\/span> a perfect 6 out of 6 <\/span>review for it on his Guns in the Gutters<\/span> blog, my interest was rekindled. Then in this month’s issue of Criminal<\/span> by Ed Brubaker<\/span> and Sean Phillips<\/span> [also worth picking up], Matt Fraction<\/span> joined Charlie Huston<\/span> and Greg Rucka<\/span> [two of my favorite authors] in a discussion of 70’s crime movies<\/span>. [The issue is worth picking up just to read their thoughts on the subject.] At any rate, Fraction<\/span> talks about getting his title Last of the Independents<\/span> from the unused title for “Charley Varrick”<\/span> [a 70’s crime<\/span> flick]. So I was sold and ordered Fraction<\/span> and Dwyer’s <\/span><\/span>graphic novel<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Last of the Independents<\/span> is Fraction’s love letter<\/span> to the creators and fans of the movie “Charley Varrick”<\/span>. Like in the movie, a middle aged guy and his crew knock off a small town bank only to discover it’s mob money <\/span>that they’ve stolen. There are other similarities, but never does this feel like anything more than a tip of the fedora<\/span>\u00a0to a movie, a genre and an era that had an enormous impact on crime fiction<\/span> fans. Fraction’s story<\/span> and script <\/span>are first rate<\/span>. He drops us in as the bank is being robbed and introduces us to the main characters quickly without wordy exposition. In fact, he often lets <\/span>Kieron Dwyer’s art<\/span> tell the tale. Dwyer’s art<\/span> is perfect<\/span> for the graphic novel. [I’ve been a fan of his work for some time and hope to someday see a piece by him in my Stallone Gallery<\/span>.]<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

One final note, the graphic novel is presented in a “widescreen” format<\/span>. I usually get annoyed by graphic novels that don’t fit nicely on the book shelf. <\/span>The publisher, AIT\/Planet Lar<\/span>, must have realized how picky collector’s can be because this graphic novel comes with a vertical slipcover that makes it possible for it to be shelved on the bookcase with other “regular” graphic novels. Kudos for whoever worked out such a creative and simple solution.<\/span><\/p>\n

Last of the Independents <\/span>rates an “A”.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week I ordered two graphic novels that I have been meaning to get for literally years. The first, which<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":912,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[58,56,51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-comics","category-crime"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/912"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1463"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1463\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25564,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1463\/revisions\/25564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}