Created Brian Vaughan
“Nothing in life is completely confidential.”
— P.I.
It’s hard to believe comic book mastermind Brian Vaughan originally gave this away Private Eye, an absolutely stunning graphic novel from 2015, for free!
Or as much–or as little–as you felt it was worth. And yet there it was, on Panelsyndicate.com, for the asking. And it’s still there
Because this ambitious, cinematic mish-mash of P.I. and sci-fi pays off in spades, and is certainly worth forking over some cold, hard cash. And now that all ten books are collected in one handsome print volume, even the most cyber-phobic of fanboys has no excuse.
In the not-so-distant, privacy-obsessed future of 2076, the world is still rocking from a cyber-catastrophe. Seems “the cloud” has finally burst, and everyone’s squirmy little secrets have been dumped out for all to see. Goodbye, internet. And goodbye anything remotely resembling privacy. In the aftermath, paranoia rules and people desperately slip in and out of various costumes and disguises to conceal their true identies — not just their names, but their gender, their race, even their species.
And right smack dab in the middle of it all is PATRICK “P.I.” IMMELMANN, an young, unlicensed investigator and “discount pararazzo” from Los Angeles who’s been hired by Taj McGill, a young and possibly unstable woman who favours dressing up as a tiger, to find out all he can about… Taj herself.
But when Taj turns up very dead in her apartment, her sister Raveena, hires Patrick to look into her murder. He’s reluctant, at first, until somebody tries to kill him and Raveena (and burns down LA’s historial Chateau Marmont in the process).
And then it becomes personal. It’s all marvelously played out in big, bold artwork (courtesy of Marcos Martin and colorist Munsta Vicente); a bright shiny nightmare, where adults play dress up all day long, dressing up as fish and cats and cowboys and ballerinas or whatever–anything to protect their own true selves from discovery.
You think LA’s full of phonies now?
It’s just a kickass read — a thoughtful, provocative, in-your-face meditation on privacy and paranoia, the internet and human nature — a hipster blend of William Gibson, Kafka and Hammett, dipped in noir and trotted out in bold bright colours, and a giant step forward for digital comics. It won both Eisner and Harvey awards.
THE EVIDENCE
- “Watch your tone. Just because you’re my blood doesn’t mean I won’t spill it.”
— his cranky, videogame-addicted grandpa has some advice for Patrick
UNDER OATH
- “… chilling in its realism… fascinating in its hyperbole…”
— Publishers Weekly (starred review) -
“An excellent meditation on privacy and what we’ll need to do in the future to protect ours.”— FUSION
COMICS
- THE PRIVATE EYE
(2013-15, Panelsyndicate.com)
10 issues
Written by Brian Vaughan
Illustrated by Marcos Martin
Colorist: Munsta Vicente- # 1 (March 2015)
- # 2 (May 2013)
- # 3 (June 2013)
- # 4 (October 2013)
- # 5 (December 2013)
- # 6 (March 2014)
- # 7 (June 2013)
- # 8 (July 2014)
- # 9 (December 2014)
- #10 (March 2015)
COLLECTIONS
- THE PRIVATE EYE | Buy this book
(2015, Image Comics)
Deluxe hardcover edition, collecting all ten issues.
