The Black Monday Murders is a supernatural financial murder mystery noir. It is written by Jonathan Hickman and illustrated by Tomm Coker. It is published by Image Comics.
Plot Synopsis:
Professor Gaddis leads Detective Dumas to confront Mammon beneath the Federal Reserve. They seek answers and find out not only who killed Daniel Rothschild, but also that the market crash in 1987 was caused by someone other than Mammon. Meanwhile, Gregoria Rothschild also knows who killed her brother and is looking to settle accounts.
Artwork:
I can’t say enough about Tomm Coker’s artwork. His style is unlike anything I’ve seen in comics before. He does a great job of making characters’ faces very expressive and of differentiating them from each other, even in a comic that is mostly black and white. He creates demons that somehow fit right into both Mammon’s lair and the Federal Reserve building. From the halls of financial institutions to the bowels of hell, he depicts a landscape that is both eerie and beautiful.
Writing:
The Black Monday Murders is not a superhero comic and is by no means action-packed (although the action starts picking up in this issue). It, like much of Hickman’s work, is reliant on building a mythology and this issue does that well. The dialogue is crisp and the use of non-traditional panels (another Hickman trademark) such as emails, internal memos, and diary entries help to enrich the world being built. The world of The Black Monday Murders is dark and eerie, but definitely one that is worth exploring. If this sounds like your sort of read, then I recommend you start at the beginning.
