Created by Peter Milligan (writer) and Raül Fernandez (art)
Welcome to the Meta-Verse. Make sure your head’s on tight.
WILL PROFANE is pretty much your classic, meat-and-potatoes LA private eye.
Until, that is, he begins to suspect he’s only a fictional character in some other guy’s detective books. That’s the wacko premise of Propane, a promising new monthly comic book from Boom by writer Peter Milligan and art by Raül Fernandez.
But they shoulda called it Propane–because this one’s a gas!
This isn’t, of course, the first time someone’s taken a post-modern metafictional take on the Shamus Game, or even the first time they’ve done so in a comic book. The genre (or sub-genre or whatever you call it) has been around long enough that some very smart writers (just ask them) don’t mind putting the boots to it, getting all story-within-a-story about it. But Profane seems, at least so far, to be one of the more fun stabs at it.
It’s not enough that Will, a Black man in his early thirties whose hair is already showing the first flecks of grey, introduces himself right off the bat, “I’m six foot two, 210 pounds with my hair washed,” in true Chandleresque fashion, or that he quickly adds “I have more character defects than one man needs,” presumably to establish his modern credibility.
No, it’s that that whole thing, narrated in terse first person, seems instantly familiar, loaded with in-jokes and shout-outs that will poke and prod P.I. fans. Like, the characters and their names: Honor D’Ath; a flame-haired femme fatale; Lili Macbeth, a seductive nightclub singer; Moose Mitchum, the extra-large, one-legged veteran professional snitch, or Spud Coltrane, the best-selling author of hard-boiled detective featuring featuring… private eye Will Profane.
Confused?
Imagine how Will feels.
After reading Coltrane’s latest, Will decides, “I don’t think I’m much of a reader. Then again, Coltrane doesn’t seem like much of a writer.”
Of course, such an elastic piece of narrative demands answers, and so Will falls back on scrying, although there’s none of that crystal ball bullshit for him. Nope, this is tough guy territory, so Will immediately looks for a place with the “right atmosphere,” and settles on a dead end alley with “film noir shadows.” There he settles down with the tools for his own version of conjuring up some answers: bourbon, lipstick, cigarettes, an old Mickey Spillane paperback.
SPOILER ALERT?
To those who think I should have posted a spoiler alert for the above? Hah! All this happened in the first issue, and there are far more twist and turns in even those few pages–and presumably many more to come. I have no idea where Milligan’s heading with this, but if he holds true and doesn’t go all Sugar on us, we are all in for one wild ride.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Peter Milligan was once named Entertainment Weekly’s “Man of the Year” for his work on comic books which aimed at a more sophisticated, more mature audience, including such acclaimed works as Shade the Changing Man, X-Statix, Enigma, Face, Hellblazer, Absolution and Britannia, about a soldier in Ancient Rome dispatched by Nero himself to play detective, while Milligan’s 2003-05 take on Human Target is said to have inspired the 2010 TV series.
As an inker, Raül Fernandez has worked with Ramon F. Bachs, Manuel Garcia, Alvaro Martinez, and Cian Tormey on books for both Marvel and DC. His first published work as a full artist was a story starring the Phantom Stranger for DC’s Terrors Through Time.
COMICS
- PROFANE
(2024, Boom Studios)
Written by Peter Millkigan
Art by Raül Fernandez
- (June 2024, #1)
FURTHER INVESTIGATION
- “Oh, Mama, I got the post-modern metafictional blues again…”
Who reads this stuff?
Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.
