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Writer: Ed Brubaker / Penciller: Sean Phillips / Colour Artist: Jacob Phillips / HC / Image Comics
29th July 2020
The Pitch: Max Winters, a pulp writer in 1930s New York, finds himself drawn into a story, not unlike the tales he churns out at five cents a word—tales of a Wild West outlaw dispensing justice with a six-gun. But will Max be able to do the same when pursued by bank robbers, Nazi spies, and enemies from his past?
Though set back in '30s New York, you may find parallels with today's evils in Brubaker & Phillips' masterful Pulp. Like all good writers, Brubaker knows the value in history repeating itself, even if it's the shadier parts of history. Like all good artists, Phillips knows the value in making the images look like they were made at another time, another era, to acclimatise the reader to the atmosphere and smells of a place they couldn't have possibly lived. Why trust imagination when they can do it for you for real? This book is about the dangers of romanticising a life and a lifestyle. We might look back on a '30s American city and see guns, gangsters, big bands and suits and fall in love (how else to explain the foothold noir still has?) But Brubaker and Phillips know that life was different back then. It was hard. There was no nobility in poverty. And what about Max? He romanticises his own life and sells it as fiction to a publisher for pennies. Max is a man who knows his own worth but will take less anyway. And of course, we cannot forget the world at large, romanticising fascism in its early days. You can hear the alarm bells ringing on that one, all the way down the decades to just yesterday, worryingly today and most ominously, tomorrow.
Max gets the deadliest disease any Brubaker / Phillips character can contract: Hope.
Max is a man who is not unaware the best days are behind, after a fashion. His mind is sharp, his spirit thriving. But his body fails and he knows from the start of the story that the end is looming. Hell, maybe his mind is going too. Was he really a cowboy? A killer? A bank robber? The answer may lie with other faces from the past that return, not to haunt Max with sins of the past but to offer a lifeline to the little future he has left. To give Max the deadliest disease any Brubaker / Phillips foil can contract: Hope. And hope is the fastest bullet in their world. Its aim is always true. Besides, Brubaker and Phillips don't create stories about heroes. Just people on various sliding scales of right and wrong.
Brubaker and Phillips don't create stories about heroes. Just people on various sliding scales of right and wrong.
Max, like all Brubaker & Phillips characters, is a failing man. An underdog in a country that loves winners. Phillips makes sure it shows on every line of his face. He's got a strong sense of moral justice, if not legal boundaries. If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, Max is well on his way. He tries to help a young Jewish man and is met with violence. He tries to add the realism of his memories to the fictional novels he sells cheap and is told, in no uncertain terms, that realism and truth don't really sell books. Who knew? We watch max deal with crushing blow after crushing blow before he decides to make his move back to the old way of doing things, face masked and revolver in hand. This is a 'one last job' type deal. We've seen it a thousand times before. But Brubaker and Phillips find a way to make it fresh. They accentuate the emotional impact of the end by showing us how good things were at the start. Maybe they're just playing us.
Terse exchanges and honest, uncomfortable truths.
Though it's a slender volume, you never feel cheated by Brubaker's writing. The book is packed with terse exchanges and honest, uncomfortable truths. Phillip's art renders the time period beautifully and the shady bars and alleys where the story is moved forward feel like real places that faded from memory years before. Jacob Phillip's colours are perfectly judged for mood and feel. I still got suckered by this book, though. About halfway through, even I started to have hope. But it's a Brubaker and Phillips book, so maybe pack that bullet-proof vest, just in case.
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