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Jinx Alameda

kevinburtonsmith

Created by Brian Michael Bendis

When I first came across JINX ALAMEDA sometime in the mid-nineties, I thought: Oh! Thankl God!

Still going through withdrawal  from the apparent recent disappearance of Max Allan Collins’ Ms. Tree, it felt like a last-minute rescue.

Here was a character-driven crime comic that looked and felt like classic noir, with every bit of the grit and wit intact, but definitely and defiantly set smack dab in the middle of the here and now! It was almost too good to be true.

And, alas, I was right.

Not that there’s anything wrong with the actual book. Juliet “Jinx” Alameda is a hard-assed, foul-mouthed female bounty hunter/bail bondsman, working the not-so-nice streets of Cleveland, pushing thirty and getting mighty tired of “the Life.”

Once upon a time, she was a tea-and-muffin, keeping-a-journal do-gooder kinda gal, who started out in the the biz cutting bonds, figuring she’d help people.

But that was a long time ago.

Now she’s hooked up with Dave “Goldfish” Gold, a grifter with “a rap sheet longer than Tupac” and his slimy, swarmy partner, Columbia, and their hunt for a mountain of money that could be the way out for all of them.

Complicating things is the growing attraction between Jinx and Goldfish, and Columbia’s ever-growing paranoia. A truly unique comic with a “fuck you” DIY style all its own, a two-fisted stylized montage of art and clip art photos and dark, dark shadows, spunky attitude and street-level grit that owed more to punk rock than anything.

The catch?

After a short burst of issues with Caliber, and another short run with Image, the series folded.

Poof! Gone!

It had been ignored by almost everyone, it seemed, but the handful of critics and fans who loved it.

Like I said, alas…. Too good to be true.

But for those few brief couple of years it was awesome.

Jinx’s creator Bendis first entered the comic world with Goldfish, originally published in 1995 as a series of one-shots by Caliber Comics, which first introduced Goldfish and Columbia. Jinx is actually a sort of prequel to that series (“sort of” because both books ignore pivotal events in the other).

From there it was a short step to Jinx.

But what we all missed was that Bendis was just getting started. He’s since become one of the biggest creators and writers in the comics biz. He’s gone on to bigger (if not necessarily better things), writing the Spawn spin-off, Sam and Twitch (“a gritty look at crime in the world of Spawn [and possibly the] best thing ever associated with Spawn?” according to Comic Book Resources) and a slew of both creator-owned and licensed titles, most notably for Marvel, where he’s became, for several years. one of the dominant forces in shaping the Marvel Universe, thanks to his often dark and hard-boiled work on The Ultimate Spider-Man, The Avengers, X-Men, Guardians of the Galaxy, Daredevil and others. Other crime comics include Scarlet (a provocative and edgy must-read meditation on corruption, vigilantism and personal and social responsibility), Torso, Powers and notably — at least for fans of this site — Alias, which introduced Jessica Jones, a former superhero turned rough-and-tumble Manhattan P.I. set loose in the Marvelverse.

But Jinx (who bears more than a few similiarities with Jessica) seems to have remained close to Bendis’ heart. In the fall of 2000, a couple of years after Jinx faded away, Bendis revived her in the “Bounty Hunter Wars” story arc in Sam and Twitch, his book about an Odd Couple team of New York cops. And he keeps threatening she’ll return… one day.

But that was before he became a big shot at Marvel. And before he jumped ship in 2018 to become a big shot at DC.

Who knows? With all the clout Bendis’s accumulated over the years, it just might happen. One can always hope, and it would hurt if Slam Bradley got a partner.

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Report respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith. Thanks for the heads up, Gerald.

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