Jacob Phillips, Ed Brubaker, Sean Phillips: Night Fever (Hardcover, 2023, Image Comics)
Hardcover, 120 pages
Published June 20, 2023 by Image Comics.
First book of the new year, and what a read it was! Dark and feverish, with some amazing art to boot. Like others, I felt like I blasted through it a bit too quickly, but/and that's a great excuse to read it again soon, if only to look more closely at the artwork.
It certainly looks good - it may well be Sean and Jake Phillips' finest artistic hours respectively. I mean I've never seen comic or graphic novel artwork look this beautiful. Brubaker's story is certainly compelling and thoughtful - feeling part a meditation by the author and part happening to Jon/Griffin in a sometimes awake/sometimes not sleep-deprived fever dream. It does feel a little too quick a read in spite of the remarkable visuals (which deserve every award imaginable) and the non-ending leaves me a little disappointed (how much of this was even real - Fight Club style). As a noir-driven look at a man's midlife crisis though, caught between his success in an ordinary life and the fulfilment he craves, it's next level good, almost dangerously so. It does channel Fight Club, its willingness to be disturbing is welcome, but did leave me wanting a little more, despite the high …
It certainly looks good - it may well be Sean and Jake Phillips' finest artistic hours respectively. I mean I've never seen comic or graphic novel artwork look this beautiful. Brubaker's story is certainly compelling and thoughtful - feeling part a meditation by the author and part happening to Jon/Griffin in a sometimes awake/sometimes not sleep-deprived fever dream. It does feel a little too quick a read in spite of the remarkable visuals (which deserve every award imaginable) and the non-ending leaves me a little disappointed (how much of this was even real - Fight Club style). As a noir-driven look at a man's midlife crisis though, caught between his success in an ordinary life and the fulfilment he craves, it's next level good, almost dangerously so. It does channel Fight Club, its willingness to be disturbing is welcome, but did leave me wanting a little more, despite the high page count.
