This one caught my eye when I was doing my "Down the Line" column for November, but I didn't really know what to expect. Courtesy of a link to an online version of the book from the author, I now know what to expect, and I can recommend this book to the crime fans in the audience, especially those with a taste for the caper stories. Mills and Burchett craft a story that has the sensibilities of a '70s heist flick, dabbling in the cliches of the genre but also providing enough twists and turns to keep things fresh. It's a really nice little "done in one" story with a likable yet mean protagonist, some real snap to the dialogue and narration and all the right atmosphere for this type of book.
It's easy to screw up noir. Part of the fun of the genre is the first-person narration with its colorful and lurid descriptions, but that color and attitude can easily become silly or stupid if it's not written right. Fortunately, Mills gets it right, and Digger's narration throughout the book has just the right tough guy attitude and just the right turn of phrase to remain entertaining. Digger is an ex-con in the tough old bastard mold, sort of like Catwoman's Slam Bradley but without the moral compass. Over the course of the story, the guy betrays several of his partners and commits more than a couple of cold-blooded murders, and yet I couldn't help but root for him. His cantankerous attitude and the way he out-thought his foes as much as anything else really made me like him.
In terms of plot, Gravedigger is pretty simple, and those who have read a lot of noir will recognize the archetypes and the general plot structure. The gang brought together for a big job, none of whom trust each other and all of whom are planning some kind of double-cross. The girl who starts twisting loyalties around, and who has her own agenda. Mills skips the heist going wrong or having some kind of twist there, but otherwise the plot treads familiar territory. Fortunately, it covers the territory well, and in this kind of story, style is half of the battle anyway. Digger's pragmatic and amoral attitude, as well as his "badass" quotient (best exemplified in the plane showdown at the end), carry a lot of the book. In addition, the familiar elements of the plot mean that Mills can take some storytelling shortcuts, and as a result, this thing is tightly paced, the kind of one-off story we just don't see a lot of in comics these days.
While Mills was an unknown quantity for me going in, Rick Burchett certainly wasn't. I've followed his work on everything from some of DC's "animated" style books to his excellent work on the Batman/Huntress miniseries with Greg Rucka. I haven't seen the printed work, so I'm not positive about this, but I think this might be done in a landscape format, because Burchett's layouts look a little wider, more like film than comics, in layout. It's a really nice look, and when you combine it with his clean style and exceptionally polished storytelling, you get artwork that perfectly matches the tone of the story. Burchett handles a couple of really cool action scenes, both during the heist and after, and he also really gives a lot of personality to the characters. The bombshell nature of Angel or the grizzled old tough guy style of Digger are sold as much by the art as by the script, and Burchett gives everything, from the backdrops to the characters to the pacing, the look and feel of a '70s crime flick.
Unfortunately, in the comics reviewing game, untested comics often turn out to be a disappointment. That's part of what heightens the joy when a book like Gravedigger comes along. It's not as stylized as something like 100 Bullets or Sin City, but the creators know what they want to accomplish and they nailed it on all counts. With any luck, we'll see more stories in this vein from these two in the future, but even if we don't, Gravedigger: The Scavengers stands out as an achievement to be proud of. 8/10
