Writer: Ed Brubaker
Artist: Sean Phillips
Colorist: Jacob Phillips
Cover Artist: Sean Phillips
Publisher: Image Comics
Price: $29.99
Release Date: August 27, 2025
Jacob Kurtz is a comic writer and artist. He’s seen tough times. Then, out of the blue, luck smiles on him. The Off The Rails production company buys the rights to adapt his comic series into a TV show. Jacob knows Hollywood chews up dreamers and devours dreams. Still, he hopes his stint as Consulting Producer can open doors for him in the entertainment industry. Can Dan Rails and Jacob Kurtz transform Frank Kafka, Private Eye into a popular TV series? And what other people will Jacob meet as he gets his life back on the rails? Let’s phone our agents, leap into The Knives: A Criminal Book HC Book 1, and see!
Story
Karma, Dan’s assistant, welcomes Jacob to Hollywood. It’s a town Jacob knows well, although he hasn’t visited in years. While Jacob sinks into a society that thrives on hype, he also reconnects with his aunt. Suzy is in her 90s, but she and her late husband, Harry, found their paths in Hollywood while fostering Jacob’s love of comics.
As Ed Brubaker charts Jacob’s ups and downs, he also introduces Angie, a former bartender at The Undertow. He shares glimpses of her youth. Brubaker also introduces Gnarly, the man who raised Angie after her mother’s death. Like Jacob, life takes Angie in unexpected directions. But when Jacob returns to Bay City, he and Angie eventually bond over comics and B-movies.
Ed Brubaker writes with a fluid grace. The Knives: A Criminal Book HC Book 1 flows back and forth in time without losing the reader. While covering Jacob and Angie’s journeys, he also blends Tracy Lawless into their lives. In his youth, Tracy belittled Jacob for making a fanzine with his friends. But by the time they reconnect, life has widened Tracy’s perspective. When danger threatens Jacob and Angie, Tracy can be the protective older friend he should have been in his youth.
Art
Sean Phillips introduces Jacob as a reserved man who navigates life cautiously. Dan Rails looks polished and athletic, clad in a polo shirt. After they meet, Jacob begins drawing cartoons in his sketchbook and taking pills before going to bed each night. When he returns to the drafting table, Jacob takes inspiration from creators like Peter Laird, Kevin Eastman, and Stan Sakai. Yet memories of watching VHS tapes with Uncle Harry and reading his leather-bound movie scripts linger.
Amid the sun-drenched and faded dreams of The Knives: A Criminal Book HC Book 1, Jacob Phillips reveals Angie’s journey from her blond youth to her black-haired teenage rebellion to her purple-haired, high-flying present. Purple forms a theme as she lingers in the shadows following Gnarly’s death, and tinges Jacob’s long hours at the drafting table. It may not flare like red-haired Karma when she speaks of Dan’s brilliance. Yet it symbolizes Angie’s determination to protect those she loves.
As readers venture into The Knives: A Criminal Book HC Book 1, black lowercase letters in yellow narrative boxes evoke the typewritten scripts that make Jacob frown. The uppercase black dialogue in white balloons blends with the narration, enhancing the present with insights from the past. Occasionally, Ed Brubaker also teases the future, before drifting back to entwine another plot strand. Sound effects enter Jack’s story as it nears its crescendo, and Tracy discovers a truth that life has fought to obscure. But then, that holds true of Jacob and Angie, as they discover who they should be through bonding with each other. Thanks to Image Comics for providing a review copy.
Final Thoughts
The Knives: A Criminal Book HC Book 1 takes readers behind the scenes in Hollywood. It introduces a diverse cast of goodfellas, cat burglars, and comic creators, while also following a soldier’s rough journey home. The people readers meet may not be winners in the conventional sense. Yet in a world that values conformity, Jacob, Angie, and Tracy shine like gems in a stream of stones.
Rating 9.8/10
This review originally published on Comic Book Dispatch.
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