Stumptown – A New PI Comic Book From Oni Press
Noir PI Series By Greg Rucka And Matthew Southworth Debuts Strongly
Nov 16, 2009
Featuring a down-on-her-luck heroine and a classic missing girl case, along with careful, well characterised writing and art, Stumptown is a new turn in a genre that has been under-represented in comics of late.
The Series
The monthly comic is published by Oni Press, an independent comics publisher with a strong track record. Their hits include The Adventures Of Barry Ween, Boy Genius, and Scott Pilgrim, soon to be a major motion picture directed by Edgar Wright.
The story itself, written by Greg Rucka and drawn by Matthew Southworth, centres around Dex, a detective in Portland, Oregon (nicknamed “Stumptown”). Like all classic PIs, she takes on a seemingly straight-forward case, but quickly finds herself in over her head. The finer details of Dex’s life unfold slowly throughout the first issue.
Southworth’s art is well-suited to the series, with a careful focus on the body language of the characters, pivotal to the unfolding of this storyline. Several sequences feature no text at all, depending on Southworth’s ability to sell the story.
Unlike many Oni series, Stumptown is in full colour, provided by Lee Loughridge. The overall look is akin to the work of Sean Phillips on Criminal, or Alex Maleev on his various Marvel works, a solid noir style that compliments the story.
The Creators
Writer Greg Rucka started out writing novels, primarily the Atticus Kodiak series, and subsequently began to work in comics. He has several successful works with Oni, including Whiteout and Queen and Country, also featuring strong female leads and elements of detective work or espionage. He has also written superhero books, primarily for DC Comics. Currently, he works on Detective Comics and Action Comics.
Matthew Southworth worked in films and music before finding his way to comics, through his friendship with writer Joe Casey. Speaking to industry news website Comic Book Resources in July 2008, he comments that the strong sense of creative partnership with Rucka drives him to try and make Stumptown “everything we both want it to be”.
The series calls for a strong sense of place in Portland, “Stumptown” itself, requiring extensive research from Southworth. Writing in the back of the first issue, he describes his process of frequently travelling to Portland to check out locations. Rucka’s script sets the action in very specific places, such as individual restaurants or shops, and even specifies the design of the lead character’s house.
The Reception
Several years in the making, the first issue of Stumptown was finally published in November 2009, to positive reviews. IGN declared that “fans of Rucka or the genre owe it to themselves to check out Stumptown”, and Paul O’Brien of the House To Astonish podcast agrees that this series “shows [Rucka] doing what he does best”.
It has been noted by some reviewers, such as O’Brien, that this comic is “not exactly redefining the genre”, conforming to many detective story standards. However, the consensus seems to be that it remains a well-executed, skilful example of the genre, and anyone interested in a good detective story could do a lot worse than check out Stumptown.
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