Sex, Strangling, and Video Tape.
Creative Staff:
Story: Christa Faust & Gary Philips
Art: Andrea Camerini
Additional Inks: Cris Bolson
Colors: Marco Lesko
Letters: Comicraft’s Jimmy Betancourt
What They Say:
With the evidence in hand, Nick and Roxy begin piece together movements of the Central Park slayer, but the NYC police department have another suspect in mind. Meanwhile, the real killer steps up the search for the missing videotape.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
After taking the videotape Dirty Dick Durbin left in her peep booth, Roxy reconnected with her old boyfriend, Nick, to see why the tape was worth killing for. Durbin ran a public access porn show where he would go around the city asking women to take their tops off and whatnot. Unfortunately, he captured more than he bargained for when he accidentally videotaped the Central Park Slayer in the act.
It turns out that the Slayer’s father is the real estate tycoon Simon Went. Daddy sent a couple of goons to retrieve the tape. They ended up killing Durbin in the process, but otherwise coming up with squat. The goons eventually get on Roxy’s trail and no good will come out of them finding her.
Meanwhile, Nick’s VCR ate the videotape, so he and Roxy go to a video friend of theirs to fix it, saying that it’s just a bit of “Slash and Flash” for a music video. He repairs the tape and immediately understands what he’s seeing, but instead of doing the right thing and turning it over to the police, he decides to blackmail Simon Went, because that always works out.
To make matters worse, Lorenzo Nichols, the son of one of Roxy’s coworkers, is arrested by the cops. He was spotted near the scene of the last murder and the police waste no time trying to pin it on him and his friends. His mother, Aiesha, knows her boy didn’t do it, but her public attorney wants them to make a deal. In order to fight the charge, Aiesha needs a real lawyer. But that takes money, and it might drive her girlfriend to do something incredibly stupid.
There’s quite a few moving pieces in this issue, but the creative team makes them work together, creating a dense, layered narrative that’s as much about New York in the 1980s as it is about murder of Dirty Dick and the identity of the Central Park Slayer. While it may seem like an odd subject to pen a love letter to, Faust does so with honesty and fidelity, having actually lived in the city and worked in a peep show just like Roxy. That honesty and that clarity of space and time work wonders in making the world the story takes place in feel alive, and when you’re dealing with crime fiction, a sense of place and the particular atmosphere it creates is vital.
The art, of course, goes a long way in creating this sense of place. Andrea Camerini, Cris Bolson, and Marco Lesko bring 1980s New York to life in all its piss-stained, dirty glory right down to the hairstyles and clothing. They also populate it with an appropriately diverse cast. To digress for a just a moment, I watched Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them last week, and even though I loved it, I also noticed that New York was about as white as box of soap flakes. It took me out of the movie a bit and definitely felt like a missed opportunity. Thankfully that’s not the case with this comic. New York is full of people from some of the most myriad backgrounds around, and this series represents that well.
In Summary:
Peepland 2 continues to impress with its layered plot, excellent characters, and fantastic setting. Like the New York in the story, it’s dirty and dangerous, yet powerful and alluring. It’s the beauty of starlight glinting off a switchblade, or the swirls blood makes on its journey to the gutter. Dr. Josh gives this an….
Grade: A
Age Rating: 17+
Released By: Titan Comics
Release Date: November 30th, 2016
MSRP: $3.99
