Rick Geary has been one of my favorite comic creators for many years now. His simple, understated, yet quirky style of storytelling speaks volumes to me, and his cartoony line art is evocative of another era. Any new book by Geary--and he's fairly prolific, doing about 2 books a year these days--is a welcome addition here at IB Central. The good news is there's two "new" ones out right now.
That "new" is in quotes, because one of them, while new, is also a reprint of a series of comics Geary did in the '90s. Most of the time, Geary's work is non-fiction, the recounting of famous murders and police cases from bygone years. But in his series of comics featuring Blanche, he combined a fictional character of his own creation with historical incidents. The black and white comics (as is most of Geary's work) brought Blanche into adventures in New York as a pianist, encountering a Lovecraftian cult, into Hollywood as a music supervisor in the early days of the movie industry, and into Paris again as a musician, involved in a weird energy plot. Moving Blanche forward in time from the early 19-teens into the twenties, Geary offers up a parade of history revolving around his plucky heroine. I love these stories (I still own the original comics), and I couldn't pass up buying Dark Horse's new collection of them, The Adventures of Blanche, in a beautiful little hardbound edition that fits in nicely with all of Geary's NBM volumes. (There's a major difference though: The Dark Horse book is wonderfully designed. The NBM editions tend to be a bit plain.)
Totally new, though, is the other book, volume two in Geary's new series of "A Treasury of XXth Century Murder," this one devoted to the mysterious death of silent film director William Desmond Taylor. It's called Famous Players, and it's another fascinating look by Geary at one of the baffling murder mysteries of the ages. Who killed Taylor, one of the most important directors of the silent era? Was it actress Mary Miles Minter, a young ingenue who Taylor took under his wing? Was it fabled comedienne Mabel Normand, whose career was never the same after Taylor's death? Or was it someone else? Rick doesn't have the answer--no one does, but it's nonetheless a wonderful book. But Geary isn't done this year: Coming in late September is his graphic biography on Trotsky. And if you're going to Comic-Con this year, look for Rick's dual covers on the Souvenir Book and the Events Guide. They're both wonderful pieces!
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