Some may think that comics are all about superheroes, but even the mask vigilantes and other overpowered costume heroes are just fighting crimes. Batman was born in the pages of Detective Comics after all, next to Slam Bradley and others. In fact, he is still doing investigating work in the street of Gotham, when he doesn’t fight super-villains.
Anyways, there have always been crime fighters in the realm of comic books, from Will Eisner’s The Spirit, pulp heroes like The Shadow, to paranormal investigators like Hellboy or Scooby-doo & co. There also are simple private detectives, cops, local sheriffs, and amateur sleuths in the pages of the Big Two comics or independent publishers–we can’t forget anthologies like Crime Suspenstories by EC comics.
If you are a dedicated reader of crime stories, you know that they come in a lot of different flavors. The following list is an attempt at covering the spectrum of the crime genre in comics with what is among the best series published. You can add to it by leaving a comment!
Criminal (& other comics) by Ed Brubaker & Sean Phillips
Nowadays, nobody talks about crime comics without naming Ed Brubaker & Sean Phillips. They became the masters of the genre. Since their first collaboration with Scene of the Crime (with Michael Lark), they worked together on a lot of series.
It was with the polar Criminal that the duo established their special brand of comics and they never stopped refining it ever since by exploring every angle they could find to tell crime stories. They went Hollywood Noir with The Fade Out, mixed cosmic horror and noir tropes in Fatale, explored vigilante justice with a twist in Killed or be Killed, 1980s LA hardboiled with Reckless, and more in standalone graphic novels.
Frank Miller’s Sin City
Frank Miller’s neo-noir hyper-stylized Sin City series is simply a Classic, the one that put back crime comics on the forefront. This is a highly influential hardboiled comic series that offers a collection of intertwining stories, with his panel of memorable recurring characters.
It takes us to Basin City where the crime rate is incredibly high and the police’s response is as violent as the criminals’s methods. And almost everybody is a criminal in Sin City!
Stray Bullets by David Lapham
One of the most critically acclaimed crime comics, Stray Bullets is an independent comic with a vision. It is not one long story. There are multiple characters and stories set in different time periods that reflect on historical cultural moments and societal changes.
But there is an unifying theme as it focuses on the consequences of criminality. It’s a dark series with a realist psychological edge that avoids some of the archetypes of the genre by focusing on ordinary people, but there is also humor (dark humor, though).
Parker by Darwyn Cooke
Richard Stark’s Parker series revived the hard-boiled detective genre and introduced an iconic character. Parker is a ruthless criminal, one you don’t want to cross. He is totally focused on the result and does what needs to be done to obtain what he wants.
Legendary comics creator Darwyn Cooke was a fan and worked on adapting the original prose books into comic books. The result is a too-short series of perfect graphic novels.
The Good Asian by Pornsak Pichetshote & Alexandre Tefenkgi
A recent comic book series, The Good Asian is a crime comic that follows a Chinese-American detective, Edison Hark, as he tries to solve a murder in San Francisco’s Chinatown in 1936, while enduring the hardships caused by the Chinese Exclusion Act.
It uses a lot of the noir tropes, cultural specificities, and immerses the plot full of twists into a tumultuous period, putting into light racial tensions in pre-war America.
Blacksad by Juan Díaz Canales & Juanjo Guarnido
Blacksad is a European comic, but it’s about America. The story takes place in a film noir atmosphere, as expressed in the United States in the 1950s. All the characters are anthropomorphic animals whose species reflect their character and role in the story.
The hero, John Blacksad, is a black cat working as a private detective à la Philip Marlowe. The gorgeous art gives life to those animals, but also to those emotional stories dipped into noir melodrama.
If you don’t like cats, maybe check out Grandville by Bryan Talbot with its British anthropomorphic badger detective, Archibald “Archie” LeBrock of Scotland Yard.
Ms. Tree by Max Allan Collins and Terry Beatty
Michael Tree is a female private investigator who, after her husband is killed, takes over their investigative company. In her first case, she apprehends the killer and learns of his affiliation with the Muerta family of organized crime.
After that, Ms. Tree lives through “Thrilling Detective Adventures” and launches a vendetta against the Muerta family. She also can be deadly! It’s a crime series by a master of the genre–FYI Max Allan Collins also wrote the “Road To Perdition” series.
100 Bullets by Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso
One of the best Vertigo series, 100 Bullets is about questioning the willingness of people to act on their desire for violent revenge–exploring the question: if you were given a chance to kill anyone you wanted, with a guarantee that the law could not touch you, would you take it?–, then it developed into a complex crime saga. It is a smart and dark morality tale.
Green River Killer: A True Detective Story by Jeff Jensen and Jonathan Case
The Green River Killer is a real serial killer, because this book is a true crime tale by the son of detective Tom Jensen who spent years trying to stop the murderer. After twenty years, during the 1980s and 1990s, Jensen finally got his man with the help of DNA technology. He then spent 180 days interrogating him in an attempt to uncover his deepest secrets.
For more true crime stories, check out Rick Geary’s series “A Treasury of Victorian Murder” or the excellent “Did You Hear What Eddie Gein Done?” by Eric Powell and Harold Schechter.
Scalped by Jason Aaron and R. M. Guéra
Another great Vertigo series, Scalped is about the consequences of bad choices, the story of a man sent on a dangerous journey that led him to the worst place possible. Mixing elements like crime, politics, poverty, drug addiction, and alcoholism, the series focuses on the Oglala Lakota inhabitants of the fictional Prairie Rose Indian Reservation in South Dakota and explores the preservation of cultural identity in a really dark way. Dashiell “Dash” Bad Horse is an undercover FBI agent who wants to uncover the bloody secrets of the Rez while investigating a local crime boss.
If you want another good story of a detective doing undercover work, check out American Carnage by Bryan Hill and Leandro Fernandez.
Whiteout by Greg Rucka and Steve Lieber
Far away from everything, in an isolated environment, Whiteout invites us to follow disgraced US Marshal Carrie Stetko who, as a punishment for murdering a criminal, is sent to McMurdo Station in Antarctica. There, a body is found on the ice and she has to investigate. It quickly becomes a story of survival as the weather is as deadly as the killer. It makes for a tense read.
If you want more crime stories by Greg Rucka, he worked with Ed Brubaker on the celebrated Gotham Central series at DC Comics.
Powers by Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Avon Oeming
Brian Michael Bendis made a name in the comics industry by writing crime comics and became renowned for his superhero tales. Powers is right in the middle with a perfect mix of detective stories set in a superhero world.
It’s basically a police procedural in which the two homicide detectives, Christian Walker and Deena Pilgrim, work for a unit focusing on cases involving people with superhuman abilities.
Sandman Mystery Theatre by Matt Wagner, Steven T. Seagle & Guy Davis
Slightly connected to Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series, Sandman Mystery Theatre is a crime noir series that doubled as a new take on a Golden Age hero. Set during the 1930s, it follows rich businessman Wesley Dodds who puts on a mask and uses a gas to get the truth out in the open. Despite that description, this is really a detective story more than the adventures of a vigilante. It explores how the approaching war influenced America and the prejudices of that time.
If you like Matt Wagner’s writing style, he also wrote multiple revival series for pulp detectives like The Spirit, The Green Hornet, The Shadow, and even wrote a few really good Batman stories, and, of course, his masterpiece Grendel that starts as a crime book but went into sci-fi.
Goldie Vance written by Hope Larson and Brittney Williams
The young readers can also have their own crime stories. Obviously, Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys are still here, but for a change, Goldie Vance is a good alternative for kids.
Set in an alternate 1960s, the story is about Marigold “Goldie” Vance, a biracial teenager, who lives in Florida. Goldie’s father runs a Miami resort where she works and resides, while her mother works as a mermaid at a resort. But what she really wants to do is detective work. She does that when assisting the in-house investigator in solving mysteries.
Revival by Tim Seeley and Mike Norton
Sold as a horror series, Revival is more of a crime series with a fantastic twist. Everybody who died on January 1 returns to life on January 2 in and around the city of Wausau, Wisconsin. Now, the area is quarantined by the CDC and Detective Dana Cypress is searching for who has killed her revived sister Em. Several more murders occurred during the following weeks. The tension is rising as some fear a government cover-up and others believe what happened was a religious miracle.