‘The Woman in Black’ is the second collected volume of the ‘Harker’ comic and it feels like Roger Gibson and Vince Danks have refined their work.
Scotland Yard DCI Harker is on a break in Whitby when a mystery novelist, Agatha Fletcher, is murdered at his hotel. Reluctantly, he calls in Critchley, his DS, to solve the murder. More bodies start appearing…
The first volume, ‘The Book of Solomon‘, was a bit too photo-realist for me. It seemed that every window in every house on Southampton Row had been outlined in stark black and white. It did suggest Bloomsbury on the kind of baking hot day that makes your head hurt from the hardness of the streets, but it distracted my focus from the storytelling.
Danks’ artwork in ‘The Woman in Black’ is more atmospheric. Perhaps inspired by the gothic location of Whitby, there is a lot more shading and nuance to the backgrounds that allows the foreground elements to draw the eye. It’s still photo-realist in terms of executing characters and places but it allows room for the eye to rove.
‘Harker’ is the comic equivalent of the sixty minute crime show in terms of character and plot. At times the plot stretches credulity – would a London pathologist really be the one to do the autopsies in Whitby? – but such stretches exist in TV crime fiction like ‘Inspector Lynley’ so ‘Harker’ is realistic within its genre.
This volume is a homage to the more genteel side of detective fiction, as the name of the murdered novelist, Agatha Fletcher, implies. Scenes set up at the ruined abbey, in a rolling fog, are a nod to the gothic heritage of the seaside town. The old hotel now running all kinds of conventions made me think of The Christmas Hotel in Paul Magrs’ wonderful Brenda and Effie series of gothic detective comedy novels. The title itself recalls Wilkie Collins’ early mystery novel, ‘The Woman in White’.
The one nod to classic crime/mystery that simply didn’t work for me was the mire and the giant hound, both elements from ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles‘. Maybe it’s just because I’m a Devon girl and the Holmes story is so rooted in Dartmoor that it seemed out of place in Yorkshire.
I suspect these books are more engaging if you are a fan of British crime fiction or have alibi as a favourite TV channel and thus can spot the references. And it’s refreshing to read a British small press comic that isn’t autobiographical, fantasy or science fiction. A title to watch out for.
