One of my favorite reads from earlier this year, Hawaiian Dick gets a trade collection this week and it's just as good as the series itself. If you haven't read the series before, you need to buy this book. And if you have read the series before, you still need to buy this book. It's one of the most well-designed trades I've seen this year, exactly the kind of special edition trade collection that I look for, and certainly rewarding for those who have read the issues as well as those who haven't sampled the book yet. In addition to a highly entertaining and original tale of 50s mystery/mysticism and Hawaiian culture, done up in beautiful style, the book comes with sketches, design notes, original strips from the Internet and even drink recipes!
Moore and Griffin have captured that style that made L.A. Confidential so well-liked, an approach to police work before Miranda rights were de rigueur, a strong sense of place and a dark plot that gets darker as it goes along. However, while L.A. Confidential was a relentlessly grim story of corruption, Hawaiian Dick has a slightly lighter touch, adding a little bit of humor and supernatural elements to the piece. The latter is especially appropriate, given that Hawaii has a rich cultural heritage that has gone mostly unexplored in fiction, unless you want to count the Brady Bunch episode where Greg finds a cursed totem. Personally, I don't want to count that... I don't really even want to remember it.
Leaving aside the generalities, though, what about the specifics? Well, first there's the characters. Byrd is a slightly grungy but tough P.I. with a dark past in the mold of Humphrey Bogart's characters. Mo Kalama, though built from the same basic mold, is slightly different in that he has a bit more of an upbeat personality, combined with a mean streak that can often be construed as kind of funny, especially when it's being aimed at a weasel informant. And the supporting cast and peripheral players are a lot of fun as well, from the sexy Princess Kahami to the sleazy gunsel who engages Byrd's services to Kalama's amusingly jittery snitch.
Then there's Bishop Masaki, one of the creepier bad guys to come down the pike in a while. This guy is one scary-looking and scary-acting mofo, with a touch of sliminess and a sense of always being in control and aware of what's going on. Masaki is like Marcellus Wallace's Hawaiian cousin, with just as much presence and intelligence, and I can feel how deep Byrd and Mo have gotten in with him. I was also quite taken with Madame Chan, and the role she plays in the story made for some interesting surprises as well.
Moore's story blends mysticism, tough-guy noir detective fiction and the mystique of the islands, so it's only appropriate that Griffin's artwork does the same. Griffin's work has an exaggerated style and painted approach that reminds me of Scott Morse, Kyle Baker, Dan Brereton and a whole lot of other talented painters whose work I can't get enough of. The colors are rich and bright, the designs are strong and the overall look really brings the reader into this world. The bright and sometimes garish elements like Byrd's shirts, The Outrigger and Madame Chan's apartment contrasts nicely with the dark den and warehouse of Masaki, and I'm impressed that Griffin manages to convey the idea of pleasant tropical warmth with little touches like the open air nature of Byrd's house or warm colors in the outdoor scenes. His storytelling style, using fairly standard panel arrangements, is also to be lauded, because it isn't boring but it's straightforward enough to be friendly to new and old readers of comics alike.
In addition to the "Byrd of Paradise" story, which in and of itself makes the trade worth buying, this is just a great package, from cover to cover. An intro and an afterword from comic shop owner James Sime and Oni editor Jamie S. Rich respectively hit the tone of the book just right and are entertaining in their own right. The back and forth emails and evolution of the characters in sketch form is just fascinating, and it's neat to get a glimpse of both Griffin's cover design roughs and unused covers. Then there's the online strips, all of which I have saved on my computer already because I liked them so much, which I'm glad to have in print (especially with story roughs beneath them that add to the behind-the-scenes feel of the extra material), a new prose story by Moore, pinups from talented guest artists and a series of drink recipes that tell a humorous illustrated story at the same time... even those who have read the story before will find a lot of new stuff to look at here.
Thank you, B. Clay Moore and Steven Griffin, for giving us a bigger Dick. (Yeah, like I could resist the double entendres for the entire review.)
