4 out of 5

Well, Ed, I’m still in it.  I’ve explained before why I fell out of love with Brubaker’s writing.  But the genre is appealing, and Ed still is one of the only guys doing quite exactly what he’s doing… even if it’s not really to my tastes.  So each new project he works on offers another opportunity.  Fatale started out good, but then went the way of Criminal and Incognito – vibe over story.  There was no one to like because it was no longer a story of characters, just wrapped-up events.  This is a totally viable way to write noir, but I admittedly prefer – most of the time, anyway – having someone to root for, despite their inevitable bad decisions.  Every now and then it’s fun to read something where everyone is vile, but it became status quo in Brubes books.

The Fade Out hasn’t done that yet.  Not only does it have people whom you don’t have to hate – such as Charlie, the blocked writer, our lead for the most part – it has several.  For the first time since, like, Scene of the Crime, Brubaker is allowing us to actually get to know a small handful of people before dumping shit all over them (or us), and it’s nice to get wrapped up in the story that way.  And based on the letters column, I’m not the only one appreciating the more grounded nature of the tale, as Fade loops in and out of Hollywood during the 40s, dropping names and places and history and using a backdrop we understand – even if we haven’t researched it to the extent Ed has – to set the perfect tone of glamour and seediness to his tale.  His doesn’t have to beat us up with “behind every shadow lies a terrible secret” dialogue or set-ups, because we instinctively already know that’s that how Hollwood was.  (Is?)

And Sean Phillips – man.  His art had stalled on me for awhile, but apparently he took to the task of working within the reality of the setting to sharpen his art up: it no longer has that sense of repeated looks of aloofness / disgust / lust shaped on top of two or three different character types.  As the script has flourished these characters, so has the art made them all real, especially complicated in the six-degrees type of roll call Ed has set up for the book (a helpful cast of characters leads in each issue).  Combined with Ellie Breitweiser’s glowing colors (again, nailing the idealism-with-a-wink tone of the period) and an alluring cover design, Fade Out is exactly the kind of series I keep hoping Ed writes, and thus I hope he keeps it up for issues to come.  Even his tone in the letters seems less braggy than usual.

Sounds like a good deal?  Why dock it a star then?  Well… I’m not sure how these issues actually qualify as an “act” so much as an interlude.  I got a sense of story from Act One, but Two is really connective tissue.  It’s interesting through and through, but we didn’t really get too far from A to B when you close the last page of the issue.  Ed knows slow burn, but he normally gives us a jolt or two along the way.  With Fade Out, it seems like he trusts the world enough to keep you in until the knife really starts to twist.  He’s right, it’s just hard to view this as a complete tale until, perhaps, we know where it’s leading.