Private Eye #1

by Skombie on March 23, 2015

Writer: Brian K Vaughan
Artist: Marcos Martin
Publisher: Panel Syndicate


Preface: This issue is a bit old hat, so naturally it has already been covered by the wonderful guys at CTG before my time. You can find the review written by our own Stephen Gervais here. However, since I’ll be reviewing all 10 issues – eventually – I thought it best to have fresh start.

The Private Eye is a comic published from the online publisher Panel Syndicate. It burst onto the comic scene because of two notable causes. First the price, a pay what you want model where you can put any price tag you want on the comic – starting at $0.00. Secondly, the author Brian K Vaughn who has been killing it with his other work: Saga.

Our protagonist is introduced secretively taking pictures of a beautiful woman get undressed, which turns out to be a crime in a far flung future. This is the first glimpse of his job as a type of detective called the paparazzi.

The rest of the world is delivered through a suspiciously convenient conversation with a senile grandfather. The main character manages to mention the day when ‘the cloud’ collapsed and everyone’s data was made public. The fappening 2.0 if you will. Scary thought for some, for me – I’m sure everyone googles narwhals dressed up as famous actors. Right?

This has a kind of cool effect on the world, everyone in the book is dressed up in some costume or other, doing their best to hide their identities in public. The exceptions to this are the kids, who probably don’t know any better. There also seems to be a class system involved, whereby the rich get the better costumes, and the poor get the bedsheets with the holes and pretend their ghosts.

The art in the comic so far is good but not great. It gets the story across. There are a lot of plain solid coloured backgrounds which makes the art feel a lot less detailed than it actually is. Faces of characters are sometimes flat and one dimensional – much like my ex-girlfriend (meow). I’m also not fond of the colour palette, it’s really bright without much if any shading making it feel very blasé.

That said, so far the characters introduced have all had a unique and interesting look about them – half thanks to the aforementioned costumes. And the backgrounds are filled with memorabilia from the 20th century. Given the way the story panned out over the first issue the poster in the apartment from the Maltese Falcon was a nice touch.

Overall, I don’t think you can really judge how this comic is going to end up from this first issue. The plot and world building barely got off the ground. The art was still finding its feet. That said I want to see how the larger story plays out, but for now I’m going with a 6/10. 

Our Score:

6/10

A Look Inside