The Knives: A Criminal Book HC Book 1 Review

 

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.

Gun Honey Collision Course #1 Review

 

Writer: Charles Ardai

Artist: Ang Hor Kheng

Colorist: João Rodri

Letterer: David Leach

Cover Artists: Derrick Chew, Adam Hughes, Sean Phillips, Shannon Maer, Cosplay, Ang Hor Kheng, Jasmin Darnell, Sketch, Claudia Caranfa, Rare Tempter, Ivan Tao, Jay Ferguson, Ariel Diaz, Kyuyoung Eom, Cedric Poulat, BRAO, David Dias, Godtail, Greg & Fake, Anna Zhuo, Warren Louw, Carla Cohen, David Sanchez & Tony Trophy

Publisher: Titan

Price: $3.99

Release Date: May 15, 2024

 

Joanna and Brook have laid low for nearly a year. The world believes they are dead. But neither wants to spend the rest of their lives looking over their shoulders and living under an assumed identity. Joanna has a plan she hasn’t told Brook about. Yet. How will Brook react to her revelation? Who might it endanger? Let's strap on our weapons, leap into Gun Honey Collision Course #1, and find out!

 

Story

Dahlia Racers faked Joanna and Brook’s deaths. Dahlia’s pal Sarah Claride ensured US intelligence agent Gorman would never trouble them again. But that left agent Kruger waiting to pounce should Joanna and Brook resurface.

 

Joanna and Brook have been hiding out in Kalimantan, Borneo. But the former government operative wants his life back. So, Joanna reveals one of her carefully laid plans. Before they disappeared, she took out an insurance policy with a Japanese crime lord. Should former US agent Brook Barrow remain "dead" for a year, Hiroshi Yamato would release damaging information about Kruger. 

 

 

 

In Gun Honey Collision Course #1, Joanna and Brook travel to Yokohama, Japan. Joanna intends to lie in wait if Kruger’s agents attack Hiroshi Yamato’s operation. But Joanna and Brook arrive late. Someone has kidnapped Hiroshi’s son. If Kyosuke breaks under interrogation, Hiroshi Yamato is dead. So, Joanna and Brook must hustle to find Kyosuke to preserve their "deaths" and ensure people don’t learn Hiroshi Yamato’s secrets.

 

Joanna's plan puts everyone in danger. It only works if someone in Yamato's operation rats out Hiroshi and tells Kruger about the ticking timebomb. Now Agent Kruger is pulling the strings, wielding the might of the US intelligence service to prevent Hiroshi from releasing the secret government files that could destroy him. Joanna and Brook care about each other. But if they survive, will Brook trust her again? If people die because her plan went wrong, will he be able to look Joanna in the eye?

 

 

 

Art

Brook ends a perimeter patrol by climbing a tree overlooking Joanna bathing. As he drops beside the pond and trains his gun on her, Joanna grabs the gun from her leg holster and puts Brook in her sights. Birds fly over a jungle valley surrounded by mountains as Joanna climbs from the pool in Gun Honey Collision Course #1. Brook looks away as Joanna pulls on her pants and shirt. Then they return to a bamboo shack roofed with palm fronts where Joanna lights a candle before laying a fish on a wooden table and preparing their meal with a meat cleaver and a wooden mallet.

 

Ang Hor Kheng illustrates their planned route with a map. He shows Joanna and Brook working off their passage aboard a fishing vessel. But by the time they disembark, two armed men clad in black clothes and balaclavas have pulled Kiyosuki from his casino’s office, pushed Hiroshi’s son into a sports car, and sped away.

 

 

 

João Rodri lavishes a loaded palette upon Gun Honey Collision Course #1. Rodri steeps the Bornean jungle in verdant greens and browns, showing Joanna and Brook's suntanned skin beneath a blue and purple sky. Kiyosuke's dyed orange hair embodies the brightly colored casino. Glowing streetlights turn the black sports car gray as it roars across the orange cobblestones past Yokohama's magenta and mauve buildings. Rodri’s attention to detail enhances the lifelike realism of Kheng's art, whether characters fight in an arena or women strip to bathe in a picturesque Japanese Onsen.

 

 

 

David Leach fires black uppercase lettering into white dialogue balloons and narrative boxes in Gun Honey Collision Course #1. White and blue gunshots scatter across Kiyosuki’s casino. But the sounds of a desperate fistfight and an intense massage remind readers that Joanne's plan has deadly consequences. 

 

Thanks to Titan Comics for providing a copy for review.

 

 

 

Final Thoughts

Charles Ardai’s Gun Honey Collision Course #1 is a fast-paced spy thriller. Ardai’s modern-day Modesty Blaise immerses readers in the Japanese underworld and launches two rival criminal empires into a gang war neither desired.

 

Rating 9.2/10

 

The Deviant #1 Review

 

Writer: James Tynion IV

Artist & Colorist: Joshua Hixson

Letterer: Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou

Cover Artist: Joshua Hixson; Dani; Andrea Sorrentino; Sean Phillips; Christian Ward; Bermejo

Publisher: Image

Price: $5.99

Release Date: November 15, 2023

 

Christmas shopping reminds Michael that he can’t wrap Christmas presents. His friend Derek agrees: he’s terrible at it. Why does this bother Michael so much? Let’s ring in the holiday season, peer inside The Deviant #1, and find out!

 

 

Story

In 1973, Randall Olsen played Santa Claus in a department store. When a worker forgot her keys and returned after hours, she found Eddie groaning and bleeding in Randall's chair. Cops raided Randall's barn, where they found two boys. The police also found photos of the boys who portrayed elves in Randall's store. He's been in prison ever since.

 

 

 

Michael is a comic book writer. He interviews Randall in search of a story. Randall insists that he only photographed the boys. If so, who hurt Eddie and killed the boys? Who was the axe-wielding Santa the cops spied near Randall's "Murder Barn?" And why did Randall have a barn in the country if he lived in the city?

 

 

In The Deviant #1, James Tynion IV comments on the state of the comic book industry. He tackles societal views on homosexuality from a historical and contemporary perspective. He also shares the storyteller’s search for truth. Randall seeks answers to who he is. He desperately wants to know where he fits in. Or does he?

 

 

Art

Joshua Hixson’s art in The Deviant #1 evokes a 1970s department store through interior design, clothing, and a cash register. Glimpses of blood trickling down from Eddie's eyes and the mutilated boys adorned like a Christmas tree are shocking but not grotesque. Light touches of lavender suggest background displays while Derek clutches Michael's hand. Yet the most haunting of all remains the moment when the searching officer falls into the snow, and his flashlight reveals the blood-splattered, axe-wielding department store Santa Claus.

 

 

 

Giant white letters introduce the dates and locations of scenes in The Deviant #1. Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou’s black uppercase letters in white dialogue balloons are easy to read. Eddie's groans look organic and rounded. The Deviant Killer's grunts are sharp and angular. Were they clawed into panels by an animal or cut into scenes with the edge of a blade?

 

Thanks to Image Comics for providing a copy for review.

 

Final Thoughts

A comic writer seeking a key to his past finds affinity with a condemned killer in The Deviant #1.

 

Rating 8.4/10

 

To preview interior art see my review at Comic Book Dispatch.