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Reckless #1
Reckless
Sex, drugs, and murder in 1980s Los Angeles, and the best new twist on paperback pulp heroes since The Punisher or Jack Reacher. ED BRUBAKER and SEAN PHILLIPS, the modern masters of crime noir, bring us the last thing anyone expected from them—a good guy. A bold new series of original graphic novels, with three books releasing over the next year, each a full-length story that stands on its own.
Meet Ethan Reckless: Your trouble is his business, for the right price. But when a fugitive from his radical student days reaches out for help, Ethan must face the only thing he fears…his own past.
“Oh man this book pushed EVERY crime fiction button for me. Working class setting covering up for a deeper societal rot, a battered, damaged (literally) protagonist against the beast, and all of it squirming and lunging through an over-lit early 80s L.A. Noir bleached to bleakness. Bliss." —Patton Oswalt
“Imagine Redford at his peak, ambling through sun-drenched, eighties L.A. in a serpentine plot that is equal parts Long Goodbye and Point Break. No one does crime fic like BRUBAKER and PHILLIPS and their collaboration has never felt more new. Explosive. Vital. And yes...reckless. I love this book.” —Damon Lindelof (Lost, HBO’s Watchmen)
"RECKLESS is an absolute rush: on the same level as golden age Travis McGee novels and the hardest-hitting Richard Stark stories. This one comes at you as fast as Steve McQueen in a souped-up Mustang and as hard as Charles Bronson with a baseball bat. You gotta have it." —Joe Hill (Locke & Key, N0S4A2) Look for Book Two in the RECKLESS series in April 2021!
Meet Ethan Reckless: Your trouble is his business, for the right price. But when a fugitive from his radical student days reaches out for help, Ethan must face the only thing he fears…his own past.
“Oh man this book pushed EVERY crime fiction button for me. Working class setting covering up for a deeper societal rot, a battered, damaged (literally) protagonist against the beast, and all of it squirming and lunging through an over-lit early 80s L.A. Noir bleached to bleakness. Bliss." —Patton Oswalt
“Imagine Redford at his peak, ambling through sun-drenched, eighties L.A. in a serpentine plot that is equal parts Long Goodbye and Point Break. No one does crime fic like BRUBAKER and PHILLIPS and their collaboration has never felt more new. Explosive. Vital. And yes...reckless. I love this book.” —Damon Lindelof (Lost, HBO’s Watchmen)
"RECKLESS is an absolute rush: on the same level as golden age Travis McGee novels and the hardest-hitting Richard Stark stories. This one comes at you as fast as Steve McQueen in a souped-up Mustang and as hard as Charles Bronson with a baseball bat. You gotta have it." —Joe Hill (Locke & Key, N0S4A2) Look for Book Two in the RECKLESS series in April 2021!
144 pages, Hardcover
First published December 16, 2020
72 people are currently reading
2815 people want to read
About the author
Ed Brubaker
1,796 books3,009 followersEd Brubaker (born November 17, 1966) is an Eisner Award-winning American cartoonist and writer. He was born at the National Naval Medical Center, Bethesda, Maryland.
Brubaker is best known for his work as a comic book writer on such titles as Batman, Daredevil, Captain America, Iron Fist, Catwoman, Gotham Central and Uncanny X-Men. In more recent years, he has focused solely on creator-owned titles for Image Comics, such as Fatale, Criminal, Velvet and Kill or Be Killed.
In 2016, Brubaker ventured into television, joining the writing staff of the HBO series Westworld.
Brubaker is best known for his work as a comic book writer on such titles as Batman, Daredevil, Captain America, Iron Fist, Catwoman, Gotham Central and Uncanny X-Men. In more recent years, he has focused solely on creator-owned titles for Image Comics, such as Fatale, Criminal, Velvet and Kill or Be Killed.
In 2016, Brubaker ventured into television, joining the writing staff of the HBO series Westworld.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 513 reviews
September 14, 2023
Goddamn.
This was good.
I love stories about the kind of people who think laws are just suggestions. And Ethan Reckless fits the bill. He's a private private eye, so to speak. A detective that takes a more...um, hands-on approach to solving your problem. And his bread and butter consists of picking up cases that aren't strictly legal.
Let's say, for example, you robbed a bank and then your partner took off with the money.
You can't go to the cops, so you go to Ethan.
The story starts when a woman he hasn't seen in years shows up and asks him to take her case.
I don't want to spoil anything but Ethan has quite an interesting past that gets revealed to the reader while he takes a trip down memory lane.
This was all the things I didn't even know I was hoping for in a Brukbaker book.
If you like hardboiled crime stories, you're gonna love this one.
Highly Recommended.
This was good.
I love stories about the kind of people who think laws are just suggestions. And Ethan Reckless fits the bill. He's a private private eye, so to speak. A detective that takes a more...um, hands-on approach to solving your problem. And his bread and butter consists of picking up cases that aren't strictly legal.
Let's say, for example, you robbed a bank and then your partner took off with the money.
You can't go to the cops, so you go to Ethan.
The story starts when a woman he hasn't seen in years shows up and asks him to take her case.
I don't want to spoil anything but Ethan has quite an interesting past that gets revealed to the reader while he takes a trip down memory lane.
This was all the things I didn't even know I was hoping for in a Brukbaker book.
If you like hardboiled crime stories, you're gonna love this one.
Highly Recommended.
November 7, 2020
Ethan Reckless: former undercover FBI operative once posing as a ‘60s radical is now banished from the agency and, in 1981 Los Angeles when we catch up with him, he’s a surfer dude who owns a dilapidated movie house downtown. He’s also a secret gun-for-hire. And then an old flame tracks him down with a mission to kill for a fortune - but who’s playing who and what’s Ethan getting himself into?
Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips’ latest is one helluva barnstormer of a comic! From the cracking opener to the multi-layered, tense narrative that slowly unfolds, I was gripped all the way through.
Like in Criminal with their series regular Tracy Lawless, this book features another tough bastard with an unlikely name: Ethan Reckless. Over the many years he’s been writing these kinds of stories, Brubaker’s perfected the hard-boiled, noirish voice that he uses for Ethan and the words flow easily - it’s an effortlessly compelling read. Meanwhile, the plot twists and turns in unexpected directions, the action scenes are well-spaced apart to keep up the excitement, and you learn bits and pieces of Ethan’s past as you go along, rather than in one heavy info-dump, so there’s never a dull moment - the pacing is masterful.
Brubaker’s not doing anything here that we haven’t seen him do before - tailing crooks, tracking down leads, gunfights, bombs, fist-fighting nekkid (ok, maybe that last one’s new!) - but he’s doing it so damn well in this book that I didn’t mind at all. Ethan’s a fascinating character with a storied past, the supporting cast are fine for the roles they’re cast in - Rainy as the femme fatale, Wilder as the villain, Anna as the fixer - and I loved the set pieces (the daring raid on the airfield in particular is amazing) and the conclusion was fantastic. Top it off with Sean Phillips’ usual first-rate artwork and what’s not to love?
At least one good thing came out of the pandy this year: Reckless. Because, as Brubaker mentions in his afterword, the pandy put the brakes on his and Sean’s monthlies and allowed him the time to consider what they were doing. He always wanted to do the comics equivalent of paperback pulp novels, similar to Darwyn Cooke’s Richard Stark’s Parker adaptations, and now he had the time to do it.
So Reckless is the first of at least three books in a series to come out over the next year. The second Reckless book, Friend of the Devil, is due in April and the third, untitled, probably this time next year. And, if the next two are even half as good as this first one was, I can’t wait! There’s still a few weeks to go before the monumental year that was 2020 slithers away but I don’t expect to come across another comic as good as this so I’m calling it now - Reckless is my pick for comic of the year!
Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips’ latest is one helluva barnstormer of a comic! From the cracking opener to the multi-layered, tense narrative that slowly unfolds, I was gripped all the way through.
Like in Criminal with their series regular Tracy Lawless, this book features another tough bastard with an unlikely name: Ethan Reckless. Over the many years he’s been writing these kinds of stories, Brubaker’s perfected the hard-boiled, noirish voice that he uses for Ethan and the words flow easily - it’s an effortlessly compelling read. Meanwhile, the plot twists and turns in unexpected directions, the action scenes are well-spaced apart to keep up the excitement, and you learn bits and pieces of Ethan’s past as you go along, rather than in one heavy info-dump, so there’s never a dull moment - the pacing is masterful.
Brubaker’s not doing anything here that we haven’t seen him do before - tailing crooks, tracking down leads, gunfights, bombs, fist-fighting nekkid (ok, maybe that last one’s new!) - but he’s doing it so damn well in this book that I didn’t mind at all. Ethan’s a fascinating character with a storied past, the supporting cast are fine for the roles they’re cast in - Rainy as the femme fatale, Wilder as the villain, Anna as the fixer - and I loved the set pieces (the daring raid on the airfield in particular is amazing) and the conclusion was fantastic. Top it off with Sean Phillips’ usual first-rate artwork and what’s not to love?
At least one good thing came out of the pandy this year: Reckless. Because, as Brubaker mentions in his afterword, the pandy put the brakes on his and Sean’s monthlies and allowed him the time to consider what they were doing. He always wanted to do the comics equivalent of paperback pulp novels, similar to Darwyn Cooke’s Richard Stark’s Parker adaptations, and now he had the time to do it.
So Reckless is the first of at least three books in a series to come out over the next year. The second Reckless book, Friend of the Devil, is due in April and the third, untitled, probably this time next year. And, if the next two are even half as good as this first one was, I can’t wait! There’s still a few weeks to go before the monumental year that was 2020 slithers away but I don’t expect to come across another comic as good as this so I’m calling it now - Reckless is my pick for comic of the year!
November 26, 2020
Brubaker and Phillips's ode to the pulp novels of the 60's, even though it's set in 1981. Ethan Reckless is a tough guy, gun for hire. Think Robert Redford in the California sunshine but with Clint Eastwood's disposition. He operates as a surlier, one man A-Team. When you're at your last resort, you call him for help. In the first of at least three adventures to come, an old flame pops up, in trouble of course. This femme fatale sics him on a group of drug runners. Lots of twists and turns I didn't see coming happen. Brubaker intersperses the action amongst his effortless dialogue. It all adds up to pulpy, noirish, goodness.
Received a review copy from Image and Edelweiss. All thoughts are my own and in no way influenced by the aforementioned.
Received a review copy from Image and Edelweiss. All thoughts are my own and in no way influenced by the aforementioned.
August 31, 2025
“Put the fucking wrench down, asshole. I’m a pacifist.”
“Great. Then so am I.”
Reckless is yet another top-of-the-line crime comic by Ed Brubaker and Sean Philips, and probably the best comic/graphic novel of the year, though it is in competition with another work from them, Pulp. I saw Reckless and read it all the way through, setting aside anything else I was supposed to be doing, as I always do when I see one of their comics come out (though why am I weeks late in seeing it??! Something amiss here). One thing that calls attention to itself always in the recent new ones is the coloring by Jacob Phillips, which is different than what Elizabeth Breitweiser had been doing, a little quirkier, brighter, but it’s more than fine; everything about this, the writing and the cartooning, is amazing pulp storytelling.
And a few times while reading it I laughed out loud with admiration, having been fooled into thinking I knew what was going on. It’s a comics thrill ride into hell. I love the fact that when Ethan Reckless is telling his story we see other things going on in the panels, adding texture and layering and another broader story behind the story, things that will always figure in. Pay attention! Although, not that it matters about paying attention, because you aren’t going to really get what is going on, until they let you know what is going on. But you won't be complaining, trust me.
So what does Ethan Reckless do? He’s a kind of fixer, a guy that gets paid to take care of people’s problems, outside of the law, and in the sixties he was being paid by the CIA to be an undercover agent infiltrating anti-war groups. But he fell in love with one of the girls whose brother was part of a Weatherman offshoot group, blowing up buildings, and then he was blown up (but didn't die) in one, and he didn’t see the girl again. Until of course he does. After all these years she finds him to ask him to help her recover some bank heist money for him, which gets complicated, as you might have anticipated. This is one of the places I was yelling at Brubaker and Phillips, or really more like cheering aloud, really, for pulling out the rug on me.
I love the subtitles for the various sections: This Thing I heard; I Wouldn’t Really Call it Work; Which Way the Wind Blows; The Underground Woman; Fortunate Son; The Way It’s Done; Down These Mean Streets, The Decline of Western Civilization, and so, all of them references to movies and books Brubaker knows well. One of the reasons he is so good is that he is a reader, a consumer of everything cultural, tv, film, novels, high art, trash, and it all makes its way into his work.
What does this team do for a living? Pulp graphic novels, and there will be 2 more coming in the next year within the Reckless World!! I’m ready!
Oh, and if you don't like the name Ethan Reckless, then you don't get the pleasure Brubaker derives from pulp stories in all their corny glory. Remember their Criminal series that features Tracy LAWLESS??!!
“Great. Then so am I.”
Reckless is yet another top-of-the-line crime comic by Ed Brubaker and Sean Philips, and probably the best comic/graphic novel of the year, though it is in competition with another work from them, Pulp. I saw Reckless and read it all the way through, setting aside anything else I was supposed to be doing, as I always do when I see one of their comics come out (though why am I weeks late in seeing it??! Something amiss here). One thing that calls attention to itself always in the recent new ones is the coloring by Jacob Phillips, which is different than what Elizabeth Breitweiser had been doing, a little quirkier, brighter, but it’s more than fine; everything about this, the writing and the cartooning, is amazing pulp storytelling.
And a few times while reading it I laughed out loud with admiration, having been fooled into thinking I knew what was going on. It’s a comics thrill ride into hell. I love the fact that when Ethan Reckless is telling his story we see other things going on in the panels, adding texture and layering and another broader story behind the story, things that will always figure in. Pay attention! Although, not that it matters about paying attention, because you aren’t going to really get what is going on, until they let you know what is going on. But you won't be complaining, trust me.
So what does Ethan Reckless do? He’s a kind of fixer, a guy that gets paid to take care of people’s problems, outside of the law, and in the sixties he was being paid by the CIA to be an undercover agent infiltrating anti-war groups. But he fell in love with one of the girls whose brother was part of a Weatherman offshoot group, blowing up buildings, and then he was blown up (but didn't die) in one, and he didn’t see the girl again. Until of course he does. After all these years she finds him to ask him to help her recover some bank heist money for him, which gets complicated, as you might have anticipated. This is one of the places I was yelling at Brubaker and Phillips, or really more like cheering aloud, really, for pulling out the rug on me.
I love the subtitles for the various sections: This Thing I heard; I Wouldn’t Really Call it Work; Which Way the Wind Blows; The Underground Woman; Fortunate Son; The Way It’s Done; Down These Mean Streets, The Decline of Western Civilization, and so, all of them references to movies and books Brubaker knows well. One of the reasons he is so good is that he is a reader, a consumer of everything cultural, tv, film, novels, high art, trash, and it all makes its way into his work.
What does this team do for a living? Pulp graphic novels, and there will be 2 more coming in the next year within the Reckless World!! I’m ready!
Oh, and if you don't like the name Ethan Reckless, then you don't get the pleasure Brubaker derives from pulp stories in all their corny glory. Remember their Criminal series that features Tracy LAWLESS??!!
May 2, 2021
"It wasn't a real job, I'd just fallen into it . . . After the rest of my life had fallen apart . . . A friend of a friend had a problem - a husband had run off with the family's savings. So I tracked the guy down and got him to give up what was left of the money, and his ex-wife tossed me five grand as a reward. That was in 1975." -- Ethan Reckless, regarding the start of his unorthodox 'career'
Take one part Travis McGee (the 'salvage consultant' protagonist of twenty-one novels by thriller author John D. MacDonald) with an almost-equal amount of the late 80's television series The Equalizer and you have the titular anti-hero of Brubaker's latest graphic novel Reckless. Reckless - illustrated to somewhat resemble actor Robert Redford during his wildly popular streak in the 1970's - is a scarred surfer in his early 30's, quietly residing in an old movie palace in the sunny Venice Beach neighborhood of Los Angeles. It's the dawn of the Reagan era, and for six years Reckless has found unusual and spotty employment via an 800 phone number, for what he refers to as "solving problems for people." Reckless works as a combination unsanctioned private eye / mob leg-breaker / repo man, hired to recover stolen or ill-received funds or property for jilted folks calling said number.
Reckless' latest case is one of an extremely personal nature - the caller is his former flame Rainy, a fugitive from justice for 10+ years. Reckless and Rainy were once both involved in the same radical faction movement during the late 60's - one of those Weather Underground-type groups that used to bomb university or industrial buildings - but became disconnected when Reckless was severely injured in an explosion. (Remember I said he was scarred?) But wait - there's more! During that time Reckless was actually a deep cover federal agent, but he soon came to have a distaste for each side in the drama. His present-day situation quickly evolves into a down-and-dirty revenge and pursuit story - bloody, violent, and with a cynical streak a mile wide. Downbeat? Yes. A little bit exhilarating? Also yes. Author Brubaker notes in an afterword how he wanted to craft something akin to the pulp paperbacks he used catch his father reading so many years ago - mission accomplished, sir!
Take one part Travis McGee (the 'salvage consultant' protagonist of twenty-one novels by thriller author John D. MacDonald) with an almost-equal amount of the late 80's television series The Equalizer and you have the titular anti-hero of Brubaker's latest graphic novel Reckless. Reckless - illustrated to somewhat resemble actor Robert Redford during his wildly popular streak in the 1970's - is a scarred surfer in his early 30's, quietly residing in an old movie palace in the sunny Venice Beach neighborhood of Los Angeles. It's the dawn of the Reagan era, and for six years Reckless has found unusual and spotty employment via an 800 phone number, for what he refers to as "solving problems for people." Reckless works as a combination unsanctioned private eye / mob leg-breaker / repo man, hired to recover stolen or ill-received funds or property for jilted folks calling said number.
Reckless' latest case is one of an extremely personal nature - the caller is his former flame Rainy, a fugitive from justice for 10+ years. Reckless and Rainy were once both involved in the same radical faction movement during the late 60's - one of those Weather Underground-type groups that used to bomb university or industrial buildings - but became disconnected when Reckless was severely injured in an explosion. (Remember I said he was scarred?) But wait - there's more! During that time Reckless was actually a deep cover federal agent, but he soon came to have a distaste for each side in the drama. His present-day situation quickly evolves into a down-and-dirty revenge and pursuit story - bloody, violent, and with a cynical streak a mile wide. Downbeat? Yes. A little bit exhilarating? Also yes. Author Brubaker notes in an afterword how he wanted to craft something akin to the pulp paperbacks he used catch his father reading so many years ago - mission accomplished, sir!
October 30, 2022
Ed Brubaker delivers yet another great crime comic. This time we've got a lead character who seems to be inspired by literary characters like Travis McGee and Matt Scudder as well as classic TV detectives like Jim Rockford and Thomas Magnum. Great stuff set in the early '80s.
August 23, 2023
Since August is Murder Mystery month on my blog “August Murders,” I decided to check out the newest Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips trade paperback offering. I have found Brubaker’s work particularly entertaining in the past, and Phillips’ art adds that gritty noir feel to their crime fiction work.
In Reckless, their latest TPB released in April 2021, there is a retro 80s aesthetic that pervades the property like a Miami Vice / Sneakers movie vibe. The characters are sufficiently haunted by the past and angst-ridden in the present. If you are looking for something both hefty and profound, you can not go wrong with Reckless. This is a murder mystery but atypical of the armchair detective with huge cinematic action sequences. I am looking forward to more of the upcoming releases of Brubaker's Reckless trade paperbacks.
In Reckless, their latest TPB released in April 2021, there is a retro 80s aesthetic that pervades the property like a Miami Vice / Sneakers movie vibe. The characters are sufficiently haunted by the past and angst-ridden in the present. If you are looking for something both hefty and profound, you can not go wrong with Reckless. This is a murder mystery but atypical of the armchair detective with huge cinematic action sequences. I am looking forward to more of the upcoming releases of Brubaker's Reckless trade paperbacks.
November 13, 2020
Brubaker and Phillips go the pulp route, which is especially noticeable in the more extravagant plot. The story goes to some ridiculous places, that would stand out in a regular Brubaker book, but here kind of fall in place. If anything, I wish he would go out a bit further with his characters, as they are pretty much in the standard Brubaker mould (meaning: believable and realistic). The most outlandish detail about the main character is that his last name is, well, Reckless.
I look forward to see where they will take this series.
(Received an ARC through Edelweiss)
I look forward to see where they will take this series.
(Received an ARC through Edelweiss)
January 17, 2021
If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire... Ethan Reckless.
"The A-Team" is reimagined with head writer Richard Stark putting a 1980s troubleshooter in situations whose solutions do not require a MacGyver device or a Magnum Ferrari. No, the only Equalizer here is a complete lack of conscience . . . and maybe a hatchet.
Reckless suffered a traumatic brain injury while involved with an offshoot of the Weather Underground in the 1970s that left him with memory gaps and distanced from feeling most emotions. A decade later he spends his time surfing the California waves, only working as an unlicensed private investigator, "Solving problems for people," when he runs out of money and the client interests him. Like the old girlfriend who just called.
Brubaker and Phillips deliver another gripping crime story -- the start of a new series -- stumbling only with an underwhelming and undercutting reveal in the final pages.
"The A-Team" is reimagined with head writer Richard Stark putting a 1980s troubleshooter in situations whose solutions do not require a MacGyver device or a Magnum Ferrari. No, the only Equalizer here is a complete lack of conscience . . . and maybe a hatchet.
Reckless suffered a traumatic brain injury while involved with an offshoot of the Weather Underground in the 1970s that left him with memory gaps and distanced from feeling most emotions. A decade later he spends his time surfing the California waves, only working as an unlicensed private investigator, "Solving problems for people," when he runs out of money and the client interests him. Like the old girlfriend who just called.
Brubaker and Phillips deliver another gripping crime story -- the start of a new series -- stumbling only with an underwhelming and undercutting reveal in the final pages.
April 30, 2021
Meet Ethan Reckless a man who serves his time in the FBI but then due to a bomb he lost some of his memories and then in 1981 he works as a PI/Hired guy and owns a movie theater but when an old love interest of his comes to seek his help, he has to deal with his PTSD and hazy memories of his past and then discovers the secret of "Rainy" his love interest and we learn of his undercover days and about Rainy being in trouble from some people, investigate into what was going on with her and the man named Wilder and the story is filled with crazy turns and twists and when you expect u know the full story you find such a massive reversal and who it was all along!
Its an epic series and set in the 80s which is this creative's team strength and Ethan is an amazing lead and he is flawed and suffers PTSD and doesn't have his full memories and then when he teams with his friends and former colleagues and discovers the mysteries of whats going on, its like we are doing it with him and then we have epic settings, detective work, weird noir-ish locations and interesting villains and the smooth character POV writing of Brubaker and the easy on the eyes art of Philips, just an awesome book all around! Definitely one of the best of 2020s!
Its an epic series and set in the 80s which is this creative's team strength and Ethan is an amazing lead and he is flawed and suffers PTSD and doesn't have his full memories and then when he teams with his friends and former colleagues and discovers the mysteries of whats going on, its like we are doing it with him and then we have epic settings, detective work, weird noir-ish locations and interesting villains and the smooth character POV writing of Brubaker and the easy on the eyes art of Philips, just an awesome book all around! Definitely one of the best of 2020s!
May 11, 2025
If you’ve never read a graphic novel before and looking to start, and if you’re a fan of crime novels and detective series by writers like John D. McDonald, Robert Crais, Lawrence Block, Donald Westlake, Jim Thompson, Michael Connelly, James Lee Burke, the list goes on…
If you like your crime fiction the same way you like your steak—-raw and bloody—-then you need to read Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips. Seriously.
“Reckless” is the first of a new series of graphic novels by Brubaker/Phillips featuring their protagonist, John Reckless, a surfer dude with a past who helps people in need. He’s less a detective and more of an equalizer-type. He doesn’t like violence, but he’s good at it if he has to be.
It’s 1981. Reckless lives in a movie theater in L.A. that shows classic film noir. Occasionally, he makes money by helping people out with problems, anything from finding missing husbands to retrieving money embezzled by companies. When an old girlfriend shows up, he feels obligated to help her. She was involved in a bank robbery several years ago, but one of her fellow bank-robbers walked away with her cut. She wants it. Reckless goes digging, but when his ex-girlfriend is murdered in front of him, he realizes that she was in over her head. He’s also pissed and out for blood now.
Reading a Brubaker/Phillips graphic novel is like watching a movie from the early-‘80s that was never actually made. One can almost cast the movie in your head, although Phillips has clearly drawn some of the characters based on real-life actors. Reckless is drawn to resemble a young Robert Redford. I picture Rainy, the ex, as a young Kathleen Turner, and James Brolin as the villain, Wilder.
Looking forward to reading the next installments of “Reckless”.
If you like your crime fiction the same way you like your steak—-raw and bloody—-then you need to read Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips. Seriously.
“Reckless” is the first of a new series of graphic novels by Brubaker/Phillips featuring their protagonist, John Reckless, a surfer dude with a past who helps people in need. He’s less a detective and more of an equalizer-type. He doesn’t like violence, but he’s good at it if he has to be.
It’s 1981. Reckless lives in a movie theater in L.A. that shows classic film noir. Occasionally, he makes money by helping people out with problems, anything from finding missing husbands to retrieving money embezzled by companies. When an old girlfriend shows up, he feels obligated to help her. She was involved in a bank robbery several years ago, but one of her fellow bank-robbers walked away with her cut. She wants it. Reckless goes digging, but when his ex-girlfriend is murdered in front of him, he realizes that she was in over her head. He’s also pissed and out for blood now.
Reading a Brubaker/Phillips graphic novel is like watching a movie from the early-‘80s that was never actually made. One can almost cast the movie in your head, although Phillips has clearly drawn some of the characters based on real-life actors. Reckless is drawn to resemble a young Robert Redford. I picture Rainy, the ex, as a young Kathleen Turner, and James Brolin as the villain, Wilder.
Looking forward to reading the next installments of “Reckless”.
December 30, 2020
Another crime story written by Brubaker, so you know this shit gonna be good.
We have a ex-fbi worker, who lost some of his memory, who now runs a Movie Theater, who also happens to help people with problems when they pay him. When a old friend comes around and asks him for help he can't deny her after their past. But once he gets tangled up in a web of lies he starts to get in over his head. Backstabbing, plenty of deaths, and a pretty fucked up ending we get everything we want from Brubaker.
The character work, as always, is really solid. The artwork, come on what do you expect. I wasn't completely sold on the partner for our main guy Reckless here, but I feel like we'll get more of her in the next volume coming out in 2021. Overall, if like any of Brubaker's work, this is a easy buy/read.
A 4 out of 5.
We have a ex-fbi worker, who lost some of his memory, who now runs a Movie Theater, who also happens to help people with problems when they pay him. When a old friend comes around and asks him for help he can't deny her after their past. But once he gets tangled up in a web of lies he starts to get in over his head. Backstabbing, plenty of deaths, and a pretty fucked up ending we get everything we want from Brubaker.
The character work, as always, is really solid. The artwork, come on what do you expect. I wasn't completely sold on the partner for our main guy Reckless here, but I feel like we'll get more of her in the next volume coming out in 2021. Overall, if like any of Brubaker's work, this is a easy buy/read.
A 4 out of 5.
December 1, 2022
[9/10]
So ... there’s like this number that you call ... like 1-800 something ... and you leave a message on the machine ... about what kind of trouble you’re in. Stuff that you can’t go to the cops for ... for whatever reason. And if you got a good enough story ... then there’s this guy that shows up ... and he solves the problem for you.
Meet Ethan Reckless, a California golden boy with a shady past, who lives in a derelict former cinema hall, likes to surf before dawn and to drive around town in a vintage Dodge van. Ethan doesn’t call himself a private detective: he doesn’t have a licence and he often strays outside the boundaries set by law enforcement. But he gets things done, for a price. His targets are often the sort that don’t go down quietly:
I needed some adult comic book material to get me back into the groove after spending too much time in the company of Lone Wolf and Cub. Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips are a great team that I met before with their first couple of albums in the Criminal series. This new offering, a product of the Covid quarantine period, is even better, at least to someone like me who shares the passion of the authors for old movies and for hard-boiled classic novels. The big advantage for readers who are not keen on weekly instalments is that the first five graphic novels are published as complete albums in a quick turnaround, with the possibility of new material coming up after a pause needed by the artists to focus on other ongoing projects. The collaboration between the hard-boiled scripts of Brubaker and the stark, poster-edged, stylish art of Phillips fits the subject matter extremely well here.
>>><<<>>><<<
I decided after finishing the Koike/Kojima samurai manga that I will no longer review single issues in long series, preferring to spend more time reading and less writing about it. So these notes are for the full five-album segment of the debut Reckless francize. [honestly, they would make great movies, Brubaker structures each album as a movie script anyway]
Reckless : is set in Los Angeles 1981. The book serves as a sort of origin story for Ethan, whose call service and whose El Ricardo residence are already established.
Before I summarize the plot, I want to play a game for genre fans and try to name the major influence Brubaker uses in his stories. For the first one, I would obviously go for Travis McGhee [John D MacDonlad], another freelance troubleshooter who works out of a Florida houseboat, uses unorthodox methods and has a sweet tooth for ladies in distress.
Such a lady comes calling for Ethan Reckless, an old flame from his days as an undercover agent of the FBI – the cause of his extensive scars received in a terrorist bomb explosion in early 1970s, and cause of his expulsion from government service, who didn’t care for Ethan’s use of drugs and fraternizing with the public enemies.
The lady tries now to recover money from a bank robbery and sets Ethan to hunt for the former partner who betrayed her.
Friends of the Devil : is set in 1985. Book two continues to explore Los Angeles criminal lore when Ethan Reckless gets romantically involved with a librarian who searches for her missing sister, a starlet who was involved with one of those California death cults that flourished in the seventies.
To me, the plot strongly resembles one of the cases of Lew Archer [Ross MacDonald]
Destroy All Monsters offers us the backstory of how Ethan met his assistant and fellow movie geek Anna, before focusing on 1988 and the cut-throat real-estate business in the metropolis. The high stakes political games and the pervasive corruption, the urban decay and the betrayals make me put this episode in the James Ellroy category of fiction.
The Ghost in You highlights the willingness of Brubaker to explore new angles, by sending the main character away on business and putting Anna, the assistant, in the role of detective, in 1989.
The story this time reminds me strongly of Raymond Chandler, who couldn’t be ignored by a modern writer who wants to pay homage to the classic hard-boiled authors.
Anna is visited by one of her childhood idols, one of the screaming queens of cheap horror flicks. This lady has just bought a sumptuous Hollywood mansion with a long history of crime and abuse, and wants Anna to investigate the presence of ghosts in the house. Anna doesn’t believe in the supernatural forces, but ghosts don’t usually kidnap the owner’s dog. Local police also seems hell bent on scaring Anna away from the location.
Follow Me Down offers us the other half of the 1989 debacle, as we get now Ethan’s point of view in San Francisco and beyond. This is the most original story of the whole five batch initial offering, but if I was forced to finish my game of attribution, I would go to Don Winslow or Cornell Woolrich [The Bride Wore Black] for influence and inspiration.
Reckless is doing a friendly service for a neighbour, trying to locate a runaway young bride with a drug problem. Soon enough, Ethan is involved instead with a serial killer and with a biker family of drug dealers who are also involved in human trafficking.
As I have by now become accustomed, Ethan falls in love and has several steaming sex scenes with the suspect and / or client. I wouldn’t call them gratuitous, since they kind of fit into the plot and into the personality of Ethan Reckless. He claims he has become emotionally inert after his bomb accident, yet shows repeatedly that he cares both about his assistant Anna, and about the victims of the criminal cases he investigated. Hints at future dramatic developments are aimed at keeping the readers primed for the next issues.
In fact, I would say the most important career development in Ethan Reckless from book one to book five is his transformation from a cynical beach bum with a talent for violence into a sort of street vigilante who punishes the lowlifes who escape police attention.
Brubaker promises new Reckless stories in the near future, and I look forward to the next batch of five albums. Until then, I might go back and finish the Criminal story arc, re-reading the first albums to refresh my memory.
So ... there’s like this number that you call ... like 1-800 something ... and you leave a message on the machine ... about what kind of trouble you’re in. Stuff that you can’t go to the cops for ... for whatever reason. And if you got a good enough story ... then there’s this guy that shows up ... and he solves the problem for you.
Meet Ethan Reckless, a California golden boy with a shady past, who lives in a derelict former cinema hall, likes to surf before dawn and to drive around town in a vintage Dodge van. Ethan doesn’t call himself a private detective: he doesn’t have a licence and he often strays outside the boundaries set by law enforcement. But he gets things done, for a price. His targets are often the sort that don’t go down quietly:
I needed some adult comic book material to get me back into the groove after spending too much time in the company of Lone Wolf and Cub. Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips are a great team that I met before with their first couple of albums in the Criminal series. This new offering, a product of the Covid quarantine period, is even better, at least to someone like me who shares the passion of the authors for old movies and for hard-boiled classic novels. The big advantage for readers who are not keen on weekly instalments is that the first five graphic novels are published as complete albums in a quick turnaround, with the possibility of new material coming up after a pause needed by the artists to focus on other ongoing projects. The collaboration between the hard-boiled scripts of Brubaker and the stark, poster-edged, stylish art of Phillips fits the subject matter extremely well here.
>>><<<>>><<<
I decided after finishing the Koike/Kojima samurai manga that I will no longer review single issues in long series, preferring to spend more time reading and less writing about it. So these notes are for the full five-album segment of the debut Reckless francize. [honestly, they would make great movies, Brubaker structures each album as a movie script anyway]
Reckless : is set in Los Angeles 1981. The book serves as a sort of origin story for Ethan, whose call service and whose El Ricardo residence are already established.
Before I summarize the plot, I want to play a game for genre fans and try to name the major influence Brubaker uses in his stories. For the first one, I would obviously go for Travis McGhee [John D MacDonlad], another freelance troubleshooter who works out of a Florida houseboat, uses unorthodox methods and has a sweet tooth for ladies in distress.
Such a lady comes calling for Ethan Reckless, an old flame from his days as an undercover agent of the FBI – the cause of his extensive scars received in a terrorist bomb explosion in early 1970s, and cause of his expulsion from government service, who didn’t care for Ethan’s use of drugs and fraternizing with the public enemies.
The lady tries now to recover money from a bank robbery and sets Ethan to hunt for the former partner who betrayed her.
Friends of the Devil : is set in 1985. Book two continues to explore Los Angeles criminal lore when Ethan Reckless gets romantically involved with a librarian who searches for her missing sister, a starlet who was involved with one of those California death cults that flourished in the seventies.
To me, the plot strongly resembles one of the cases of Lew Archer [Ross MacDonald]
Destroy All Monsters offers us the backstory of how Ethan met his assistant and fellow movie geek Anna, before focusing on 1988 and the cut-throat real-estate business in the metropolis. The high stakes political games and the pervasive corruption, the urban decay and the betrayals make me put this episode in the James Ellroy category of fiction.
The Ghost in You highlights the willingness of Brubaker to explore new angles, by sending the main character away on business and putting Anna, the assistant, in the role of detective, in 1989.
The story this time reminds me strongly of Raymond Chandler, who couldn’t be ignored by a modern writer who wants to pay homage to the classic hard-boiled authors.
Anna is visited by one of her childhood idols, one of the screaming queens of cheap horror flicks. This lady has just bought a sumptuous Hollywood mansion with a long history of crime and abuse, and wants Anna to investigate the presence of ghosts in the house. Anna doesn’t believe in the supernatural forces, but ghosts don’t usually kidnap the owner’s dog. Local police also seems hell bent on scaring Anna away from the location.
Follow Me Down offers us the other half of the 1989 debacle, as we get now Ethan’s point of view in San Francisco and beyond. This is the most original story of the whole five batch initial offering, but if I was forced to finish my game of attribution, I would go to Don Winslow or Cornell Woolrich [The Bride Wore Black] for influence and inspiration.
Reckless is doing a friendly service for a neighbour, trying to locate a runaway young bride with a drug problem. Soon enough, Ethan is involved instead with a serial killer and with a biker family of drug dealers who are also involved in human trafficking.
As I have by now become accustomed, Ethan falls in love and has several steaming sex scenes with the suspect and / or client. I wouldn’t call them gratuitous, since they kind of fit into the plot and into the personality of Ethan Reckless. He claims he has become emotionally inert after his bomb accident, yet shows repeatedly that he cares both about his assistant Anna, and about the victims of the criminal cases he investigated. Hints at future dramatic developments are aimed at keeping the readers primed for the next issues.
In fact, I would say the most important career development in Ethan Reckless from book one to book five is his transformation from a cynical beach bum with a talent for violence into a sort of street vigilante who punishes the lowlifes who escape police attention.
Brubaker promises new Reckless stories in the near future, and I look forward to the next batch of five albums. Until then, I might go back and finish the Criminal story arc, re-reading the first albums to refresh my memory.
December 23, 2020
SUPER FAST REVIEW:
Good but not Brubaker’s best (though to be fair I did just read Cruel Summer which was a masterpiece!).
So as always the art and story are excellent! This one also has some suspense and good action scenes too. There’s also some comic relief that works surprisingly great (mostly thanks to a pretty decent supporting character). There’s also some good dialogue.
I wasn’t particularly into the main character TBH (that could change in future books). There’s a global warming bit that just felt forced and didn’t make any sense (especially weird to see forced political moments here since Brubaker’s work is rarely political). Also, I didn’t like how it seemed to sort of embrace drug use (between this and My Heroes Have Always Been Junkies, I seriously hope one of my favorite writers of all time doesn’t have a drug problem).
Overall definitely good stuff. Book two comes out in a few months and should be pretty bad-ass. I liked this for sure but it ain’t on the same level as Criminal, Fatale or The Fade Out. Still worth a read nonetheless.
4/5
Good but not Brubaker’s best (though to be fair I did just read Cruel Summer which was a masterpiece!).
So as always the art and story are excellent! This one also has some suspense and good action scenes too. There’s also some comic relief that works surprisingly great (mostly thanks to a pretty decent supporting character). There’s also some good dialogue.
I wasn’t particularly into the main character TBH (that could change in future books). There’s a global warming bit that just felt forced and didn’t make any sense (especially weird to see forced political moments here since Brubaker’s work is rarely political). Also, I didn’t like how it seemed to sort of embrace drug use (between this and My Heroes Have Always Been Junkies, I seriously hope one of my favorite writers of all time doesn’t have a drug problem).
Overall definitely good stuff. Book two comes out in a few months and should be pretty bad-ass. I liked this for sure but it ain’t on the same level as Criminal, Fatale or The Fade Out. Still worth a read nonetheless.
4/5
June 29, 2021
One of the best teams in comics is back at it again, and this time with a series of pulp graphic novels following a problem-solver/trouble-maker-for-hire in the same vein of Travis McGee, Parker, or Jack Reacher. In the 1980’s, Ethan Reckless gets a visit from an old flame that not only brings back ghosts of the past, but plunges him into a plot of graphic revenge.
This first book in the series actually turned out to be pretty middle-of-the-road work for Brubaker and Philips. It proved to be a little forgettable and the climax seemed to just fizzle out in a lazy way. But middle-of-the-road from these guys is still better than half the work out there, and with its cracking first half, this book is still a promising beginning to what could be a good series.
This first book in the series actually turned out to be pretty middle-of-the-road work for Brubaker and Philips. It proved to be a little forgettable and the climax seemed to just fizzle out in a lazy way. But middle-of-the-road from these guys is still better than half the work out there, and with its cracking first half, this book is still a promising beginning to what could be a good series.
March 2, 2022
Brubaker y Phillips se marcan un Equipo A con lo que el Equipo A no nos ofrecía: operaciones encubiertas del FBI, los grupos revolucionarios de los 70 a la huída en los 80, tráfico de drogas, y un único protagonista, medio amnésico y con remordimientos. Todo contado con la elegancia habitual del dúo creativo pero, también, muy lugar común con escaso riesgo. Respira propuesta de guión para una futura película de plataforma o una miniserie, además de tebeo para fans. El color de Jacob Phillips ya es todo uno con síntesis de líneas de su padre y realza el paisaje emocional de la historia con las diversas gamas cromáticas que utiliza.
May 3, 2022
There are two major issues with this work: the story, and the storytelling. Both are some of the worst I have ever seen.
The story:
the synopsis reads "Sex, drugs, and murder in 1980s Los Angeles", which might mislead you into thinking it's aimed at adults, but it isn't. Perhaps it is unfair of me to judge a book aimed at a younger audience as if it wasn't, but it is the worst kind of such a book - it pretends to be gritty, dark and realistic, while it is anything but. This story is a perfect example as to why I hated American superhero comic-books as a teenager, so i wasn't at all surprised to discover that Ed Brubaked mainly wrote exactly these kinds of works.
As for the surface plot - it was exactly that. A perfectly generic story, with a perfectly generic cast. I guessed half of the final plot twist after reading the first few pages, and the other half of it was so cliche I don't know what to even say about it.
Our main character is ridiculous, and not in a good way. He is the cliche brooding tough guy, but his backstory does not fit the character. There are two sides to him: a peaceful, anti-war, weed-smoking good-guy who rants about global warming, and a tough, ruthless killing machine (who magically never kills anyone, more on that in a bit) who cares about nothing and no one.
These two sides do not fit well together, and the reason seems simple enough: the first is the author, the second his power fantasy. For some reason, several meaningless points about the character's backstory are exactly the same as the author's. I do understand why one would write about things he knows and understands, but these points play no part in the story; they are there as a self-insert by the author and nothing more.
And the first-person narration definitely doesn't help.
This book adheres to the classic American superhero "no killing" policy, which is responsible to much of the nonsensical issues with the plot: our protagonist single-handedly defeats a small army of trained, armed men (without having any relevant combat experience himself - he was very briefly an undercover FBI agent, not a navy seal), wounds them severely - but no one dies. In fact, the story breaks immersion specifically to tell us that - our protagonist stabs a guy in the chest, the guy lies on the ground holding his bloody wound, and then the main bad-guy walks by, tells him that he'll live, and then leaves him alone to bleed. How does he know the guy will live? how does the protagonist have the skills to stab a guy in the chest without risking death? It makes no sense, and is clearly there for the singular purpose of informing the readers that this character will survive.
The bad guy then walks past other injured men, and remarks on how they are all alive.
We also see our protagonist standing over several bodies while holding a bloodied axe - are we expected to believe he hit them all with the axe to the point of unconsciousness, but they will still survive?
Then, our protagonist faces the bad guy in combat:
The storytelling:
Is this a comic-book? A "graphic-novel"? Wrong; it's a novella with illustrations.
This is (supposed to be) a visual medium, but text describes more details than what is shown, and it's often even worse: the text describes exactly what is shown.
Now, I'm no fanatic when it comes to "show, don't tell". I think it is very appropriate to sometimes tell and not show - when the situation calls for it. This book, however, is 1% show, 99% tell.
I wanted to give some examples, but almost every line of narration is an example. Just choose a page at random, and you'll see it.
Maybe this is some comic-book convention or style I am unfamiliar with, and if so please correct me. But to me this goes beyond style - this is an egregious misuse of the medium. You can literally take out every single illustration until only the text remains, maybe add references as to who is talking at any moment, and the story will still make perfect sense.
The story:
the synopsis reads "Sex, drugs, and murder in 1980s Los Angeles", which might mislead you into thinking it's aimed at adults, but it isn't. Perhaps it is unfair of me to judge a book aimed at a younger audience as if it wasn't, but it is the worst kind of such a book - it pretends to be gritty, dark and realistic, while it is anything but. This story is a perfect example as to why I hated American superhero comic-books as a teenager, so i wasn't at all surprised to discover that Ed Brubaked mainly wrote exactly these kinds of works.
As for the surface plot - it was exactly that. A perfectly generic story, with a perfectly generic cast. I guessed half of the final plot twist after reading the first few pages, and the other half of it was so cliche I don't know what to even say about it.
Our main character is ridiculous, and not in a good way. He is the cliche brooding tough guy, but his backstory does not fit the character. There are two sides to him: a peaceful, anti-war, weed-smoking good-guy who rants about global warming, and a tough, ruthless killing machine (who magically never kills anyone, more on that in a bit) who cares about nothing and no one.
These two sides do not fit well together, and the reason seems simple enough: the first is the author, the second his power fantasy. For some reason, several meaningless points about the character's backstory are exactly the same as the author's. I do understand why one would write about things he knows and understands, but these points play no part in the story; they are there as a self-insert by the author and nothing more.
And the first-person narration definitely doesn't help.
This book adheres to the classic American superhero "no killing" policy, which is responsible to much of the nonsensical issues with the plot: our protagonist single-handedly defeats a small army of trained, armed men (without having any relevant combat experience himself - he was very briefly an undercover FBI agent, not a navy seal), wounds them severely - but no one dies. In fact, the story breaks immersion specifically to tell us that - our protagonist stabs a guy in the chest, the guy lies on the ground holding his bloody wound, and then the main bad-guy walks by, tells him that he'll live, and then leaves him alone to bleed. How does he know the guy will live? how does the protagonist have the skills to stab a guy in the chest without risking death? It makes no sense, and is clearly there for the singular purpose of informing the readers that this character will survive.
The bad guy then walks past other injured men, and remarks on how they are all alive.
We also see our protagonist standing over several bodies while holding a bloodied axe - are we expected to believe he hit them all with the axe to the point of unconsciousness, but they will still survive?
Then, our protagonist faces the bad guy in combat:
The storytelling:
Is this a comic-book? A "graphic-novel"? Wrong; it's a novella with illustrations.
This is (supposed to be) a visual medium, but text describes more details than what is shown, and it's often even worse: the text describes exactly what is shown.
Now, I'm no fanatic when it comes to "show, don't tell". I think it is very appropriate to sometimes tell and not show - when the situation calls for it. This book, however, is 1% show, 99% tell.
I wanted to give some examples, but almost every line of narration is an example. Just choose a page at random, and you'll see it.
Maybe this is some comic-book convention or style I am unfamiliar with, and if so please correct me. But to me this goes beyond style - this is an egregious misuse of the medium. You can literally take out every single illustration until only the text remains, maybe add references as to who is talking at any moment, and the story will still make perfect sense.
July 4, 2021
Gorgeous, gritty artwork and an excellent anti-establishment, counter culture kind of Travis McGee type lead character, but the story arc felt less than inspired and mostly fizzled by the end.
October 28, 2021
In 1975, an undercover FBI agent almost died in the blast of an anti-government terrorist bomb. With holes in his memory and trauma-muted emotional response, he was cut loose in disgrace by the federal authorities. Today, unwanted by the Bureau, he survives as a soldier of fortune. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find him, maybe you can hire...Ethan Reckless.
So the elevator pitch reminds me a lot of The A-Team , but the tone is pure Brubaker-Phillips and the quality is far beyond that of the junk TV show. Reckless is seriously good***, and I was happy to learn that this is the first of three planned volumes, all of which will be released before the end of 2021.
The colors are marvelous. The plot is complex and unpredictable without sacrificing plausibility. The aesthetic design of the villain especially is superb. Homerun.
[***It's seriously good with the exception of the protagonist's name. 'Ethan Reckless' is the kind of hero moniker you see in a 30 Rock episode that mocks bad TV detective shows. "I played Alexis Goodlooking. She was attractive, and also GOOD at LOOKING for clues."]
--------------------------
SECOND READ
I found myself going through the panels very slowly on this pass, just taking in the colors and Phillips' genius for naturalistic, unforced body language, and the way Brubaker's dialogue can be both understated and inherently dramatic. These guys are both brilliants.
So the elevator pitch reminds me a lot of The A-Team , but the tone is pure Brubaker-Phillips and the quality is far beyond that of the junk TV show. Reckless is seriously good***, and I was happy to learn that this is the first of three planned volumes, all of which will be released before the end of 2021.
The colors are marvelous. The plot is complex and unpredictable without sacrificing plausibility. The aesthetic design of the villain especially is superb. Homerun.
[***It's seriously good with the exception of the protagonist's name. 'Ethan Reckless' is the kind of hero moniker you see in a 30 Rock episode that mocks bad TV detective shows. "I played Alexis Goodlooking. She was attractive, and also GOOD at LOOKING for clues."]
--------------------------
SECOND READ
I found myself going through the panels very slowly on this pass, just taking in the colors and Phillips' genius for naturalistic, unforced body language, and the way Brubaker's dialogue can be both understated and inherently dramatic. These guys are both brilliants.
February 13, 2021
Fakt netusim, jak to tyhle dva panove delaj, ale staci par stranek a ja jim to zeru i s alobalem. A to i veci, kde me premisa nebo obalka, jako prave v pripade Reckless, uplne neoslovila.
Brubaker tady voli trochu jinej vypravecskej postup a v uvodu nam ukaze prakticky konec pribehu. Po par strankach ale pretoci a zacne vsechno pekne vysvetlovat.
Titulni hrdina je takovej Winston Wolf z Pulp Fiction, kterej neni postarsi chlapek v obleku, ale kalifornskej surfar s nomen omen. A taky neresi problemy za bohaty mafiany, ale za uplatu pomaha lidem, ktery se svym problemem nemuzou jiz na policejni stanici.
A protoze nikdo nechce cist pribeh o nejakym random pripadu, tak se na scene objevi postava z Recklessovi komplikovany minulosti.
Stejne jako ostatni jednohubky od toholde dua, se Reckless cte jednim dechem a sem rad, ze v tomhle "univerzu" hodla tvurci duo pokracovat a na jare bysme se meli dockat daliho pribehu. Za me velka parada!
Brubaker tady voli trochu jinej vypravecskej postup a v uvodu nam ukaze prakticky konec pribehu. Po par strankach ale pretoci a zacne vsechno pekne vysvetlovat.
Titulni hrdina je takovej Winston Wolf z Pulp Fiction, kterej neni postarsi chlapek v obleku, ale kalifornskej surfar s nomen omen. A taky neresi problemy za bohaty mafiany, ale za uplatu pomaha lidem, ktery se svym problemem nemuzou jiz na policejni stanici.
A protoze nikdo nechce cist pribeh o nejakym random pripadu, tak se na scene objevi postava z Recklessovi komplikovany minulosti.
Stejne jako ostatni jednohubky od toholde dua, se Reckless cte jednim dechem a sem rad, ze v tomhle "univerzu" hodla tvurci duo pokracovat a na jare bysme se meli dockat daliho pribehu. Za me velka parada!
May 23, 2021
Brubaker and Phillips, the best team in pulp comics, decided to address the problems being caused for comic periodicals by the pandemic by producing straight-to-graphic-novel pulp adventures. Reckless is the first, and it's a terrific start.
Reckless has everything you could hope from a pulp adventure. Great characters, shocking events, gray morality, and exciting adventure. The fact that the protagonist is obviously a high-functioning sociopath makes the comic particularly interesting (and daring), especially since that seems to be the result of a brain injury.
A lot of the events of this comic are very personal to Reckless, and that's much of what makes them good. As is often the case with a debut volume like this, it's hard to see how the creators will repeat the trick ... but I'm definitely interested in seeing more.
Reckless has everything you could hope from a pulp adventure. Great characters, shocking events, gray morality, and exciting adventure. The fact that the protagonist is obviously a high-functioning sociopath makes the comic particularly interesting (and daring), especially since that seems to be the result of a brain injury.
A lot of the events of this comic are very personal to Reckless, and that's much of what makes them good. As is often the case with a debut volume like this, it's hard to see how the creators will repeat the trick ... but I'm definitely interested in seeing more.
April 23, 2022
Reckless, by Ed Brubaker (Script) and Sean Phillips (Art) is the first in a new modern crime noir series.
Meet Ethan Reckless: Your trouble is his business, for the right price. But when a fugitive from his radical student days reaches out for help, Ethan must face the only thing he fears…his own past.
Loved it! Love the story and the art and I love it even more these guys are prolific so there is a helluvalot more to enjoy!
Themes: Sex, drugs, and murder in 1980s Los Angeles.
5 Stars
Meet Ethan Reckless: Your trouble is his business, for the right price. But when a fugitive from his radical student days reaches out for help, Ethan must face the only thing he fears…his own past.
Loved it! Love the story and the art and I love it even more these guys are prolific so there is a helluvalot more to enjoy!
Themes: Sex, drugs, and murder in 1980s Los Angeles.
5 Stars
January 10, 2021
Brilliant artwork and an intriguing idea.
October 9, 2021
Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips are a team that I will show up for any time, any place. Reckless is a perfect example of why I hold this team in such high esteem. Brubaker writes in the Afterword that he produced three Ethan Reckless stories during quarantine with the aim of releasing them all in the same year. He had a pretty clear idea of the character and it's the sort of pulp storytelling that no one does better these days. Phillips masterfully brings the details of the settings and they all feel real and known.
Ethan is an ex-FBI agent who was hoping to avoid the Vietnam draft. He's injured in the line of duty and winds up as a fixer-for-hire, helping people solve problems that conventional routes can't solve. He's an easily identifiable character type, but the story has great turns and reveals so I never felt like I was racing ahead of the writer. Also, I generally enjoy these sorts of pulp/noir stories and this time frame is new for me and that felt fresh.
It's violent, it's tinged with sadness, it's compelling, it's everything you want from Brubaker and Phillips and their storytelling. I cannot wait to read the other 2 installments of Ethan Reckless tales.
Ethan is an ex-FBI agent who was hoping to avoid the Vietnam draft. He's injured in the line of duty and winds up as a fixer-for-hire, helping people solve problems that conventional routes can't solve. He's an easily identifiable character type, but the story has great turns and reveals so I never felt like I was racing ahead of the writer. Also, I generally enjoy these sorts of pulp/noir stories and this time frame is new for me and that felt fresh.
It's violent, it's tinged with sadness, it's compelling, it's everything you want from Brubaker and Phillips and their storytelling. I cannot wait to read the other 2 installments of Ethan Reckless tales.
October 30, 2021
The RECKLESS graphic novels are unique in that they are true novels, not a collection of short comic books stitched together. This frees the creators, the acclaimed team of Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips, from artificial page counts (the length of a comic book) for their chapters. Brubaker’s stated intention for the RECKLESS books were to create a series character like those popular in the 1960s-70s. James Bond, Nick Carter, Matt Helm, and mostly Travis McGee come to mind for me. The first novel introduces Ethan Reckless who spends much of his time surfing and then taking on side jobs to recover stolen money from the clients for a cut when he needs cash. Contacted by a former lover whose take from a robbery have been stolen by the ringleader named Wilder, Ethan methodically goes about tracking down Wilder while dealing with his own damaged memory and a ton of buried secrets. Both Brubaker’s scripting and Phillip’s artwork are amazing and the story is the type that I love. Highly recommended and an easy five stars.
May 10, 2021
RECKLESS recalls the former great pulp detective/heroes of the paperback 1960's and 1970's and moves the action a little forward into the 1980's. This would have made a great print novel that could place itself on the same plateau as Parker and Travis McGee, etc. - - but it works so much better as a graphic novel. Brubaker and Phillips are the team supreme when it comes to crime fiction in comics, each enhancing the other's words and images for the greatest impact.
Normally releasing their excellent crime comics in monthly issues (Criminal) and then collecting in trade paperback, the pandemic shut-down forced the creative team to come up with a different method for their art - - - hardcover collections. Three tales of Ethan Reckless (appropriate name) have been released so far. The presentation here is far superior, printed on quality paper that makes the color work come alive. I hope they continue with this format in the future.
Normally releasing their excellent crime comics in monthly issues (Criminal) and then collecting in trade paperback, the pandemic shut-down forced the creative team to come up with a different method for their art - - - hardcover collections. Three tales of Ethan Reckless (appropriate name) have been released so far. The presentation here is far superior, printed on quality paper that makes the color work come alive. I hope they continue with this format in the future.
August 3, 2024
Ethan Reckless has a past, some of which he can’t recall There was an explosion and his life changed,
When he receives a phone call from a woman he knew years ago he makes her a promise to help her. Of course, not everything is as it seems.
Some violence and sexual content. If you enjoy Brubaker and Phillip’s Criminal series this will be a perfect addition to your graphic novel collection
When he receives a phone call from a woman he knew years ago he makes her a promise to help her. Of course, not everything is as it seems.
Some violence and sexual content. If you enjoy Brubaker and Phillip’s Criminal series this will be a perfect addition to your graphic novel collection
March 17, 2022
Everything Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips do together is the best thing.
January 3, 2021
Combine the A-Team, half a dozen 70's detective shows, and Max Allan Collins Quarry books and you get Reckless.
April 27, 2025
This was the first Brubaker Phillips joint I didn’t love… this was just ok…. Neither the story nor characters pulled me in… I might try one more in this series, but lots of other good stuff I want to do….
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