Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
In the Robert Rodriguez 2005 film Sin City, one of the more interesting set of stories weaved together was that of Nancy Callaghan, Detective Hartigan and one of the beasts that haunts Basin City like a Japanese knotweed being cultivated by perverted and foul paedophile, the obscene Roark Junior. Sin City: That Yellow Bastard follows that story neatly from start to finish and it is arguably the best story in the entire series because of it.
If trying to place any of the Frank Miller tales into the neat, tidy square box of Neo-Noir, the wonderfully captivating offspring of Film Noir, then the coarse, filthy world of Detective Hartigan is the most fitting of all. On the trail of an 11 year old girl who has been abducted for his own perverse pleasure by one of the most influential and corrupt men’s progeny in the city, Hartigan has two fatal flaws in his armour, a weak heart and the curse of being one day from retirement. In other noir novels or graphic novels that might be seen as cliché ridden, as a nod so far back it practically catches itself being born. However in That Yellow Bastard, Hartigan is a breath of fresh air with those, perhaps easily contrived flaws.
The feeling of rooting for the one guy that you truly want on your side in Basin City, the most-clean police officer mixes superbly with the diseased mind and soul of Roark Junior. The various stand-offs between the pair, the graphic nature of relieving Roark of both his weapons is a shot in the eye for detractors of the genre and the persecution of the last good man by framing him for a crime that he would never dare commit is one that riles in the gut of the reader. It makes for true, unashamed sincere writing and tremendous artwork throughout.
The gratifying nature of the graphic novel is heightened to a pinnacle in the series by the introduction of the one thing left out throughout the Sin City series, namely the colour of jealousy, of disease and cowardice. In amongst the Black and White Neo Noir outlook, Roark is seen to inhabit yellow skin, a by-product of all the cures his father paid for in attempt to have grand-children after his son’s penis was shot off by Hartigan. It is an outstanding addition to the artwork and really highlights the depravity and stink of filth extricated by Roark’s unhinged mind.
There are true moments in comic book history that are so defining that to anybody taking the immense satisfaction of a well written story, Sin City: That Yellow Bastard surely must rank as one of the pillars of enlightenment, the seed in which Graphic Novels must compete against.
Sin City: That Yellow Bastard is available to purchase from Worlds Apart in Lime Street, Liverpool.
Ian D. Hall