John Hardin
Created by C. Gaby Mitchell

Orphans! Mayhem! Terror!

JOHN HARDIN's on the run.

A quiet type, a turn-of-the-last-century farmer from a small town in Missouri, generally his biggest concern is harvesting the corn. But suddenly his wife is missing and he's become the prime suspect behind an explosion which destroyed a train carrying official US currency paper. Determined to bring in the real culprits and clear his name, he figures he should make himself scarce. But that's a little difficult when he's got the all-powerful, all-seeing Black Diamond Detective Agency (can you say "Pinkertons?") hot on his heels.

What to do? The one thing the agency doesn't expect -- Hardin adapts an alias and joins their ranks.

The Black Diamond Detective Agency is a 2007 graphic novel, heavy on period detail, based on the "true" historical journals of Arthur James Quindlen, the ficticious agency's founder.  It's actually an original screenplay by C. Gaby Mitchell that was adapted and illustrated with watercolor art by Eddie Campbell, the award-winning cartoonist behind the acclaimed comic series From Hell.

UNDER OATH

• "A visually stunning graphic narrative with all sorts of complicated plot twists... The complications have implications that reverberate a century later, but even those who have trouble following the plot will marvel at Campbell's visual detail, use of color (particularly an explosive red) and extensive stretches of wordless panels."
  (Kirkus)
  

NOVELS

• THE BLACK DIAMOND DETECTIVE AGENCY ...Buy this book
  (2007, First Second)
  Based on the screenplay by C. Gaby Mitchell
  Adapted and illustrated by Eddie Campbell

Report respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.