In this graphic novel adaptation, Raymond Chandler’s Trouble Is My Business, the book’s foreword asks the following question: “Why adapt this particular story into a graphic novel?” Ben H. Winters eventually answers the question, but by simply broaching it, he might remind readers how our cultural landscape has seen media companies and film studios wring every last drop of blood from the intellectual properties they own. That said, this graphic adaptation of Chandler’s 1939 short story still offers readers a unique entry into the world of Chandler’s hard-drinking, deep-thinking private detective Phillip Marlowe.
Marlowe is hired by an industrialist to protect his wayward adopted son Gerald from femme fatale archetype Harriet Huntress, who may have her own sinister intentions. After Gerald is is found dead, Marlowe must find the killer among a plethora of suspects, including Harriet, a mysterious chauffeur who displays a certain set of skills, and the typical thugs and criminals who populate 1930’s Los Angeles. It also goes without saying that finding the killer means Phillip Marlowe will live to drink, fight, and quip another day.
Telling a story in a visual medium (in movies or graphic storytelling) means that the original story is often condensed, sometimes brutally so. Secondary plots and characters that added flavor to the story are cut away from the story till all that remains is what can be told through a visual medium. This simple fact makes writer Arvind Ethan David’s choice of adapting a short story (rather than, say, a 400 page epic tale) a wise one. In retelling Trouble Is My Business, David shows he can balance the large amount of snappy dialogue while keeping the story’s pacing humming along. However, David seems to challenge himself by adding details about the inner lives of characters like Harriet without bogging down any of the action.
Telling the story, however, is only half of this book’s task; the other half is providing visuals that complement Chandler’s words and David’s direction and Ilias Kyriazis’s artwork is up to the task. The people populating this story are what one would expect from a 1930’s detective story. Jaws are suitably square, lips are drawn with just the right amount of sneer, and the women who perhaps shouldn’t be trusted look both beautiful and dangerous. The book offers up delicious eye candy apart from Harriet Huntress. This eye candy includes gunshots that seem to zip across the page and languidly curling cigarette smoke stretching toward the top of the page.
There may be those adult patrons, perhaps even those who’ve read all about Marlow’s exploits, who would turn up their nose at this book because they have been fed (perhaps even overfed) a diet of rehashes and reimaginings. However, retellings in the graphic novel format like this one shouldn’t be dismissed out of hand. There are plenty of graphic novel retellings of classic stories that serve not only as introductions to these books’ original source material but may draw readers to other classics, both graphically and non-graphically retold, that they might not have otherwise discovered.
Raymond Chandler’s Trouble Is My Business By Raymond Chandler, Arvind Ethan David Art by Ilias Kyriazis Pantheon, 2025 ISBN: 9780553387599
NFNT Age Recommendation: Adult (18+) Creator Representation: British,
Raw emotion mixes with fantastical dreams in Rescue Party, creating a snapshot of a world constantly on the edge of uncertainty. Reading the whole anthology cover to cover was an emotional trip that took me through the familiar hope, despair, humor, and regret that so many people experienced in a time that seems both uncomfortably recent and impossibly ancient.
In April 2020, shortly after the pandemic forced him to close his alternative comic and zine store, editor Gabe Fowler put out a call for comics on Instagram. He asked that each comic conform to a nine panel layout and envision the artist’s ideal future. Over 250 entries from at least 50 countries were submitted to the project and posted online, resulting in an eclectic mix of experiences and views. This anthology contains over 140 comics that were noted by Fowler as particularly impactful.
To say that the art of Rescue Party is diverse is an understatement. Every single artist has a unique style and medium, such as drawing, painting, and collage. Entries vary from soft and straight forward to abstract and surreal. Some messages are reflected literally, others poetically, and with some it was as if line and color were exposed nerves spread across the page. Most readers are likely to find comics here that resonate with them, and I personally found a lot to love, but it was impossible for me to connect with every single one.
While the project’s directive asked for the ideal; pain, isolation, frustration and cynicism sometimes leak through and project dystopian presents and futures. This occasionally made it a heavy read, but I felt the rawness and honesty of these particular entries accurately expressed the reality of living through early Covid and lockdown. Idealism wasn’t always within reach. As contributor Promona Sengupta writes at the end of her uncomfortable narrative, “Anyway, I was supposed to tell you a positive pandemic story. This came out instead. Mea Culpa”.
As distinctive as the contributors and their art are, certain themes tie many of the entries together. Isolation features prominently and is frequently depicted through a desperate yearning for human touch and connection, and a wish to have every important friend and relative in one, tangible place. Sometimes quarantine is seen as a relief and a break from the exhausting world and broken systems laid bare by the pandemic.
Other artists expressed their wishes for the planet and played on themes of climate change and how the earth transforms without us. In some stories we succeed in making the earth safe and whole, in others we fail. And sometimes what we leave behind fuses with nature to create something new. In Rescue Party, there are as many possible futures as there are people.
I often struggled with readability as I moved through this collection. Along with the diversity in art comes a lot of variation in lettering, and some of the handwriting in particular proved difficult for me to decipher. I was provided with a digital review copy, where zooming in was possible and helpful, but I find myself wondering if a print copy would present an accessibility issue for some readers. Other content that might be challenging includes nudity, discussions of mental health and, of course, extreme isolation. Rescue Party is best shelved in an adult-focused graphic novel collection.
I did not follow the Rescue Party project on Instagram as it was happening, but having read this anthology, I truly wish I had. I think I would have found connection and solidarity in the moment. Reading it now, it takes me back to not just the news-worthy developments in early 2020, but the deep and nuanced emotions I personally felt at the time. Seeing some of the more optimistic comics leaves me with a coulda, woulda, shoulda feeling, but it’s a reminder that even in our worst moments, we can envision better futures.
Rescue Party A Graphic Anthology of COVID Lockdown By Gabe Fowler Pantheon, 2024 ISBN: 9780593316801
The setting: suburban Seattle, the mid-1970s. We learn from the outset that a strange plague has descended upon the area’s teenagers, transmitted by sexual contact. The disease is manifested in any number of ways — from the hideously grotesque to the subtle (and concealable) — but once you’ve got it, that’s it. There’s no turning back. As we inhabit the heads of several key characters — some kids who have it, some who don’t, some who are about to get it — what unfolds isn’t the expected battle to fight the plague, or bring heightened awareness to it , or even to treat it. What we become witness to instead is a fascinating and eerie portrait of the nature of high school alienation itself — the savagery, the cruelty, the relentless anxiety and ennui, the longing for escape. And then the murders start.
This title has not (yet) been reviewed by our staff, but it is a title that we highly recommend for the majority of libraries building collections for this age range.
Black Hole By Charles Burns ISBN: 9780375714726 Pantheon, 2008 NFNT Age Recommendation: Adult (18+)
Meet Charlie Chan Hock Chye. Now in his early 70s, Chan has been making comics in his native Singapore since 1954, when he was a boy of 16. As he looks back on his career over five decades, we see his stories unfold before us in a dazzling array of art styles and forms, their development mirroring the evolution in the political and social landscape of his homeland and of the comic book medium itself.
This title has not (yet) been reviewed by our staff, but it is a title that we highly recommend for the majority of libraries building collections for this age range.
Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye By Sonny Liew ISBN: 9781101870693 Pantheon, 2016 NFNT Age Recommendation: Adult (18+)
Maus is a haunting tale within a tale. Vladek’s harrowing story of survival is woven into the author’s account of his tortured relationship with his aging father. Against the backdrop of guilt brought by survival, they stage a normal life of small arguments and unhappy visits. This astonishing retelling of our century’s grisliest news is a story of survival, not only of Vladek but of the children who survive even the survivors. Maus studies the bloody pawprints of history and tracks its meaning for all of us.
Maus By Art Spiegelman ISBN: 9780679406419 Pantheon, 1996 NFNT Age Recommendation: Adult (18+)
In powerful black-and-white comic strip images, Satrapi tells the story of her life in Tehran from ages six to fourteen, years that saw the overthrow of the Shah’s regime, the triumph of the Islamic Revolution, and the devastating effects of war with Iraq. The intelligent and outspoken only child of committed Marxists and the great-granddaughter of one of Iran’s last emperors, Marjane bears witness to a childhood uniquely entwined with the history of her country.
(Publisher Description)
Persepolis By Marjane Satrapi ISBN: 9780375714573 Pantheon, 2004 NFNT Age Recommendation: Adult (18+)
In this graphic novel adaptation, Raymond Chandler’s Trouble Is My Business, the book’s foreword asks the following question: “Why adapt this particular story into a graphic novel?” Ben H. Winters eventually answers the question, but by simply broaching it, he might remind readers how our cultural landscape has seen media companies and film studios wring every last drop of blood from the intellectual properties they own. That said, this graphic adaptation of Chandler’s 1939 short story still offers readers a unique entry into the world of Chandler’s hard-drinking, deep-thinking private detective Phillip Marlowe.
uncertainty. Reading the whole anthology cover to cover was an emotional trip that took me through the familiar hope, despair, humor, and regret that so many people experienced in a time that seems both uncomfortably recent and impossibly ancient.
