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:	First Second
Publication date:	07/25/2023
Series:	Homicide: The Graphic Novel , #1
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	159,031
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

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.

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 the narrative nonfiction books Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets and The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood, Simon is a 2010 MacArthur Fellow.

Editorial Reviews

★ 06/26/2023

As cutting, darkly funny, and true today as when it was first published in 1991, Simon’s landmark nonfiction crime narrative gets an appropriately noirish graphic novel adaptation that does right by the original. As a Baltimore Sun police beat reporter, Simon (The Wire) spent 1988 following the city’s homicide detectives. The first half of a duology drawn by Squarzoni (Climate Changed) maintains the density of Simon’s reportage and his trademark mix of procedural detail (indoor killings are easier to solve than outdoor; motive doesn’t matter) and elevated sardonic humor. Early stretches give a feel for the city and the job, grooving on the detectives’ profane language and self-mocking gravitas enough to personalize them without simplistic heroizing. Tensions mount as the body count piles up (two murders every three days) and detectives are torn between clearing old cases and focusing on the high-profile “red balls” or “murders that matter.” Of those, solving the brutal killing of 11-year-old Latonya Wallace (“a true victim, innocent as few of those murdered in this city ever are”) becomes a departmental obsession. Squarzoni’s sharp, clean line art renders dramatically etched shadows and starkly clenched nighttime faces, the muted colors occasionally splashed with bloody red for yet another body sprawled on a Baltimore street. It’s a must-read for Simon’s many fans and anyone who appreciates sophisticated true crime. (July)

Publishers Weekly

"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