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The Cleaners: Absent Bodies
In the dark tradition of Los Angeles noir, The Cleaners is the story of a ragtag team of for-hire trauma-scene cleaners led by ex-surgeon Robert Bellarmine. Contracted with sanitizing some of the nastiest crime and accident scenes in the tri-county LA basin, the team battles against what could only be described as the grim, unknowable face of the supernatural. But by focusing on the scientific explanation, no matter how aberrant or extraordinary, they counteract centuries-old superstition to prove things are seldom what they seem . . .
In Absent Bodies, Bellarmine and his crew take on a series of gruesome tasks starting with a bloodbath that covers an entire neighborhood. This investigation leads them toward uncovering a disturbing mystery involving missing people -- mostly children -- which dates back longer than the history of the city itself.
In Absent Bodies, Bellarmine and his crew take on a series of gruesome tasks starting with a bloodbath that covers an entire neighborhood. This investigation leads them toward uncovering a disturbing mystery involving missing people -- mostly children -- which dates back longer than the history of the city itself.
129 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2009
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Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews
October 31, 2018
Just kind of boring.
A cool idea of showing how to clean up a bloody area. How to "clean" the dirtiness of a murder and so on. But the story felt jumbled, confused, and jumping around. Art felt a little stocky. I expected better.
A cool idea of showing how to clean up a bloody area. How to "clean" the dirtiness of a murder and so on. But the story felt jumbled, confused, and jumping around. Art felt a little stocky. I expected better.
January 23, 2017
video review - https://youtu.be/yAEjdL_cy84
September 6, 2011
Wow, that was actually...disturbing. I found it hard to make sense of what was really going on in the deeper plot through most of this book - mostly it was just a bit chilling to see the awful things being done by the 'villain' juxtaposed next to the harsh reality of our 'heroes'.
I thought I was going to enjoy this more - get a hit of the usual smug superiority that most of the CSI-type shows give me when they show just how much smarter the police techs/science geeks are than the criminals. None of that here for us - not only is there no one who doesn't have a stain on them throughout this story, but there's really no payoff other than finding out what's happening.
This is a very well written story with just-sparse-enough dialogue, and no extraneous scenery or words. In fact it's so sparse that I really had to strain to follow, but that's actually just because most graphic novels leave my mental muscle atrophied from lack of exercise. Nice to get in a round of calisthenics once in a while.
Art was very good for an indie - not perfect, but also not polished corporate, ready-for-Marvel-or-DC blandness. I like a little rough style.
I sure hope Wheaton is still at it, and if by some miracle this book is ongoing I'll *definitely* pick up more.
I thought I was going to enjoy this more - get a hit of the usual smug superiority that most of the CSI-type shows give me when they show just how much smarter the police techs/science geeks are than the criminals. None of that here for us - not only is there no one who doesn't have a stain on them throughout this story, but there's really no payoff other than finding out what's happening.
This is a very well written story with just-sparse-enough dialogue, and no extraneous scenery or words. In fact it's so sparse that I really had to strain to follow, but that's actually just because most graphic novels leave my mental muscle atrophied from lack of exercise. Nice to get in a round of calisthenics once in a while.
Art was very good for an indie - not perfect, but also not polished corporate, ready-for-Marvel-or-DC blandness. I like a little rough style.
I sure hope Wheaton is still at it, and if by some miracle this book is ongoing I'll *definitely* pick up more.
February 2, 2010
The rating might be a bit high, but I really enjoyed, and was slightly disturbed by this tale of crime scene cleaners. Former Dr. Robert Bellarmine seems to have some secrets in his past, as do his cleaner crew, and one of those secrets seems to be Bellarmine's search for something else besides the best and safest way to clean grisly crime scenes. A little horror is tossed into the story, and overall I was pleasantly surprised with how much I enjoyed the story. I would probably read more.
October 18, 2010
If there was more I'd definitely continue to read it, so that should say something. I really don't think I'd recommend it to anyone I know personally, as just a 120 page story though. The entire time I was reading it I wanted to know what would happen, so that's a definite plus. I knew nothing about it before, just gave it a shot based on the publisher and cover and overall I was pleased.
June 28, 2017
This is a thriller, through and through, focused on a serial killer targeting kids. It follows Bellarmine, a medical specialist with a company that cleans dangerous waste, like blood and human remains, from murder scenes. His meeting with the serial killer, named Laura who is a harvester of blood and is way over 100 years old but looks in her 20s, feels artificial. The story takes a dive into the paranormal at that point. Too bad as the beginning was more like a police procedural, all science and logic.
March 14, 2024
Very fragmented storytelling, some confusing plot points and even more confusing character motivations, and overall, just something that seems to try to go more for shock value than anything else.
June 11, 2010
Can I say 2 and a half? I mostly liked this,... I would probably pick up and read a vol. 2 (at the library) if it happens, and since alot went unexplained I suspect there will be a second one,... it started with a cool premise and then it went kind predictable , ... the art was mostly o.k., ...
March 2, 2012
Very interested at first.. making you wanna see what's next, though I'd prefer a different ending.
February 5, 2017
Started out really interestingly, then descended into boring, well-worn paths with very little explanation and just a lot of assumption.
March 3, 2023
It was a good idea but I felt like I was skipping chapters, the story made some weird jumps and it got messy.
July 8, 2017
TL;DR Plot Overview:
Robert, Harlan and some chap called Knut run a crime scene cleaning business. They get a job where someone appears to have dumped the blood of 100 different individuals in a residential complex. Neighbourhood children go missing and Robert instantly comes to the conclusion that he's dealing with a creature called a "harvester". Turns out she's an incredibly old immortal schoolteacher who's been kidnapping children and feeding on their blood. She turns one of the boys and he gets away, but Rob & co. manage to subdue her with bullets and leeches. Oh, and some random people were found with three headless bodies in their van.
The blurb on the back of this book sounded so cool, like a cross between badass Ghostbusters and crime scene cleaners! Unfortunately it ended up being 95% crime scene cleaning and 5% "ghostbusting", so it fell far short of my expectations. The ghostbusting isn't even ghostbusting, it's more like "Oh hey, let's spend 60 pages cleaning and OMG LOOK IT'S A VAMPIRE!" Bad pacing is a pet peeve of mine when it comes to reviewing books, and The Cleaners is yet another example of this.
Not only is the vampire/harvester storyline thrown in far too late and far too randomly, it's just not investigated deeply enough. The book description claims that the characters rely on science to explain the paranormal occurrences in the series but this doesn't happen at all. The writers tell us it's a person that lives on human blood and tissue to sustain themselves (aka a vampire) and leave it at that. We see Eldridge and Henry Reardon being turned, but we get no explanation as to how they are turned. As far as I can tell they get turned by a damn Dementor's Kiss.
I'd like to have learned about how vampires and harvesters differ, if at all. I'd also like to have learned about Eldridge's "maker" and the history and mythology of harvesters. I'd like to know if harvesters bite their prey and if they can do so without turning them. Eldridge also appeared to have razor sharp fingernails and I want to see more about that too. Speaking of razor sharp fingernails, there was also a completely random scene where we learn that Knut has razor blades embedded in his finger tips. What the actual fuck. O___O
I also didn't care for the artwork here. Normally I take issue with how female characters are portrayed, but in The Cleaners I just had a problem distinguishing between the males! Knut and Mr. Reardon should have been called Pale and Paler, and I also thought Robert's girlfriend's daughter was actually her son! This book also features a snippet of the next issue; and a store manager and ex-soldier looked so similar that I wondered how the manager had suddenly sprouted killer flowers from his chest! (Don't ask....) I had to go back and reread the text a few times to ensure I had the correct meaning.
On that note, there were also a few panels where I just couldn't figure out what the fuck was happening. It wasn't like my experiences with manga (namely BIOMEGA バイオメガ 1) where the panels are too scribbly to distinguish what's happening, the image was just incongruous with the text. For example, there's a scene where Robert is buying hydrogen peroxide at the convenience store while watching two suspicious looking guys load their van up with ice. He says "one more time" while watching them, which made no sense at all. I reread the scene a few times and ultimately just guessed he was asking the store clerk to repeat the price, because otherwise I have no fucking clue what was meant by that.
I didn't entirely hate the book though, I found the science behind the crime scene cleaning to be really fascinating! We see forensics scour the crime scene in shows like CSI but we never see what comes after. Assuming the science in this book is correct, I have a new found respect for trauma scene cleaners! I assumed blood and gore would be a bitch to clean up and there'd be a lot of carpet and furniture replacement involved, but The Cleaners made it look so simple and effective. I'm interested to learn more about the process and whether the science here is truly accurate.
Overall: Unless you have an intense morbid fascination with trauma scene cleaning, you'll be underwhelmed by The Cleaners: Absent Bodies. It suffers from slow pacing and superficial explorations, and ultimately fails to deliver on its promise of ~SCIENCE! I may read the next trade paperback to see if the series improves, but I'll try borrowing it rather than spending my money on it.
Robert, Harlan and some chap called Knut run a crime scene cleaning business. They get a job where someone appears to have dumped the blood of 100 different individuals in a residential complex. Neighbourhood children go missing and Robert instantly comes to the conclusion that he's dealing with a creature called a "harvester". Turns out she's an incredibly old immortal schoolteacher who's been kidnapping children and feeding on their blood. She turns one of the boys and he gets away, but Rob & co. manage to subdue her with bullets and leeches. Oh, and some random people were found with three headless bodies in their van.
The blurb on the back of this book sounded so cool, like a cross between badass Ghostbusters and crime scene cleaners! Unfortunately it ended up being 95% crime scene cleaning and 5% "ghostbusting", so it fell far short of my expectations. The ghostbusting isn't even ghostbusting, it's more like "Oh hey, let's spend 60 pages cleaning and OMG LOOK IT'S A VAMPIRE!" Bad pacing is a pet peeve of mine when it comes to reviewing books, and The Cleaners is yet another example of this.
Not only is the vampire/harvester storyline thrown in far too late and far too randomly, it's just not investigated deeply enough. The book description claims that the characters rely on science to explain the paranormal occurrences in the series but this doesn't happen at all. The writers tell us it's a person that lives on human blood and tissue to sustain themselves (aka a vampire) and leave it at that. We see Eldridge and Henry Reardon being turned, but we get no explanation as to how they are turned. As far as I can tell they get turned by a damn Dementor's Kiss.
I'd like to have learned about how vampires and harvesters differ, if at all. I'd also like to have learned about Eldridge's "maker" and the history and mythology of harvesters. I'd like to know if harvesters bite their prey and if they can do so without turning them. Eldridge also appeared to have razor sharp fingernails and I want to see more about that too. Speaking of razor sharp fingernails, there was also a completely random scene where we learn that Knut has razor blades embedded in his finger tips. What the actual fuck. O___O
I also didn't care for the artwork here. Normally I take issue with how female characters are portrayed, but in The Cleaners I just had a problem distinguishing between the males! Knut and Mr. Reardon should have been called Pale and Paler, and I also thought Robert's girlfriend's daughter was actually her son! This book also features a snippet of the next issue; and a store manager and ex-soldier looked so similar that I wondered how the manager had suddenly sprouted killer flowers from his chest! (Don't ask....) I had to go back and reread the text a few times to ensure I had the correct meaning.
On that note, there were also a few panels where I just couldn't figure out what the fuck was happening. It wasn't like my experiences with manga (namely BIOMEGA バイオメガ 1) where the panels are too scribbly to distinguish what's happening, the image was just incongruous with the text. For example, there's a scene where Robert is buying hydrogen peroxide at the convenience store while watching two suspicious looking guys load their van up with ice. He says "one more time" while watching them, which made no sense at all. I reread the scene a few times and ultimately just guessed he was asking the store clerk to repeat the price, because otherwise I have no fucking clue what was meant by that.
I didn't entirely hate the book though, I found the science behind the crime scene cleaning to be really fascinating! We see forensics scour the crime scene in shows like CSI but we never see what comes after. Assuming the science in this book is correct, I have a new found respect for trauma scene cleaners! I assumed blood and gore would be a bitch to clean up and there'd be a lot of carpet and furniture replacement involved, but The Cleaners made it look so simple and effective. I'm interested to learn more about the process and whether the science here is truly accurate.
Overall: Unless you have an intense morbid fascination with trauma scene cleaning, you'll be underwhelmed by The Cleaners: Absent Bodies. It suffers from slow pacing and superficial explorations, and ultimately fails to deliver on its promise of ~SCIENCE! I may read the next trade paperback to see if the series improves, but I'll try borrowing it rather than spending my money on it.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 28, 2013
Robert Bellarmine, an ex-surgeon with a shady past, lives in the LA Basin and leads a skilled team of trauma-scene cleaners who are independently contracted. However, this is no ordinary crack team of cleaners…they have a knack for the supernatural side of things, and when signs start pointing to a supernatural force that may be responsible for a recent string of deaths and disappearances, Robert and his team must intervene and stop it if they can.
The Cleaners: Absent Bodies collects issues #1-4 of the Dark Horse Comics series of the same name, The Cleaners. Mark Wheaton and Joshua Hale Fialkov did the writing, while art and colors were done by Rahsan Ekedal and Jon Graef respectively.
Initially, this seemed like a really cool premise. People who have to go clean up crime scenes, who then encounter supernatural elements in their work. Indeed, during the time I read this noir-type trade paperback collection, I did enjoy the story…but unfortunately the artwork didn’t shine enough for me to enjoy the book to its full potential.
The artwork wasn’t awful or anything, but many of the characters, both men and women, were hard to tell apart. The panels with blood and the large splash panels were great but everything was sort of confusing for the smaller panels.
I felt like the script could stand on its own two feet and I think this would actually make a pretty cool television series or movie, as it has a sort of CSI-meets-Fringe type of feel to it. I liked that aspect.
I might check out later installments, but this first volume hasn’t really enticed me enough to do it right away.
The Cleaners: Absent Bodies collects issues #1-4 of the Dark Horse Comics series of the same name, The Cleaners. Mark Wheaton and Joshua Hale Fialkov did the writing, while art and colors were done by Rahsan Ekedal and Jon Graef respectively.
Initially, this seemed like a really cool premise. People who have to go clean up crime scenes, who then encounter supernatural elements in their work. Indeed, during the time I read this noir-type trade paperback collection, I did enjoy the story…but unfortunately the artwork didn’t shine enough for me to enjoy the book to its full potential.
The artwork wasn’t awful or anything, but many of the characters, both men and women, were hard to tell apart. The panels with blood and the large splash panels were great but everything was sort of confusing for the smaller panels.
I felt like the script could stand on its own two feet and I think this would actually make a pretty cool television series or movie, as it has a sort of CSI-meets-Fringe type of feel to it. I liked that aspect.
I might check out later installments, but this first volume hasn’t really enticed me enough to do it right away.
December 16, 2015
I recently wrote about a Venn diagram of comics - those with great concepts, and those with great execution. This book falls in the great concepts area, but falls far from the range of great execution.
The first issue is wonderful, painting our protagonist as a Forensic cleanup specialist, and immersing us in his world. It's fascinating, and even perhaps educational. But that strong start quickly gutters to a stop as the story wanders into an utterly unnecessary supernatural bent, and sputters to a halt. It's not helped by the artwork - although the blood spatters and gore are well done, all of the characters look similar, to the point where I could not differentiate them in the later issues; and besides our protagonist, a lot of the characters get little if any introduction, much less fleshing out. And as the story goes into weirder territory, it leaves behind its interesting hook for much more traditional, poorly developed cliches. So much so that I can't even recommend this for the quality first issue - it's too much of a letdown afterwards to even try to start it.
The first issue is wonderful, painting our protagonist as a Forensic cleanup specialist, and immersing us in his world. It's fascinating, and even perhaps educational. But that strong start quickly gutters to a stop as the story wanders into an utterly unnecessary supernatural bent, and sputters to a halt. It's not helped by the artwork - although the blood spatters and gore are well done, all of the characters look similar, to the point where I could not differentiate them in the later issues; and besides our protagonist, a lot of the characters get little if any introduction, much less fleshing out. And as the story goes into weirder territory, it leaves behind its interesting hook for much more traditional, poorly developed cliches. So much so that I can't even recommend this for the quality first issue - it's too much of a letdown afterwards to even try to start it.
April 19, 2013
Picked this up from the pile out of curiosity, started reading it, finished it in a sitting, so there's some good qualities to it. It's essentially a CSI style mystery, only with crime scene cleaners rather than a forensics team, and there's an unusual amount of sciency goodness thrown in along the way -- even though the central point of the main story is seemingly paranormal, while the short story that closes the book takes the premise of the Jordy Verill part of Creepshow and makes it seem almost plausible and earthbound.
There are flaws -- the story reads almost like a repurposed television pilot, and has at least one plot too many (what is Knut's deal being one, and the headless corpses being another) deigned to lead into further story arcs, not to mntion a handful of things to be explained later that I don't think ever got explained due to a lack of a second series. It's engaging enough, though, and interesting, and I would have liked to have seen more.
There are flaws -- the story reads almost like a repurposed television pilot, and has at least one plot too many (what is Knut's deal being one, and the headless corpses being another) deigned to lead into further story arcs, not to mntion a handful of things to be explained later that I don't think ever got explained due to a lack of a second series. It's engaging enough, though, and interesting, and I would have liked to have seen more.
February 23, 2015
A short graphic novella whose lead character heads a team specialising in the cleaning of the more gruesome trauma scenes within the LA area (bloody suicides, murders etc), as occurring in surburban lanes or hotel rooms, we see it all. Being a comic, of course they have to come across serial killing supernatural types to please the fanboy types. No complaints here so far.
Some genuinely creepy elements, from both the scientific information on how blood is the most toxic and most dispersive substance, to the genuine horror of the final quarter.
Some of the plot is not always clear, i don't know how a van was both tracked and who the bodies were, and I am guessing an unnecessary unresolved ending was purely to lead to a second series that never got commissioned, that most pointless of cliffhanger.
But the enjoyment was from both the creepiness and the general premise, that either attracts you or not, I guess!
Some genuinely creepy elements, from both the scientific information on how blood is the most toxic and most dispersive substance, to the genuine horror of the final quarter.
Some of the plot is not always clear, i don't know how a van was both tracked and who the bodies were, and I am guessing an unnecessary unresolved ending was purely to lead to a second series that never got commissioned, that most pointless of cliffhanger.
But the enjoyment was from both the creepiness and the general premise, that either attracts you or not, I guess!
November 20, 2010
A team of expert crime scene cleaners -- curiously identical in appearance -- have a knowledge about blood and its behavior that is rather beyond the normal medical trade. They seem very happy with their gruesome job too, until all hell breaks loose, resulting in a very thirsty kid. Among other things.
Rough going on first read -- especially with so many characters looking so similar (I'm guessing there's a reason for this) -- but very rewarding the second time around. Artist Rahsan Ekedal clearly loves his spatter and gore.
Rough going on first read -- especially with so many characters looking so similar (I'm guessing there's a reason for this) -- but very rewarding the second time around. Artist Rahsan Ekedal clearly loves his spatter and gore.
June 13, 2010
I must say that I really enjoyed the full-color artwork here! The story started out great and then got a bit weird... not sure if I even understand what happened! Guess I will have to wait for the next volume...
Definitely NOT just about cleaning u crime scenes.... mildly recommended...
Definitely NOT just about cleaning u crime scenes.... mildly recommended...
May 10, 2011
Interesting, dark story, but sort of hampered by the art--the blood and guts scenes were good, but the characters were a little hard to distinguish. Also, some plotlines were certainly left hanging, and as far as I know, there's no mention of a volume 2 to resolve them.
April 24, 2013
Interesting enough to read the next, but the way some of the male characters were drawn so similar made for some confusion. Maybe that's what was supposed to be happening, but it was annoying. Other than that, it's a nice enough tale with a bit of horror.
September 3, 2013
Great premise, but Wheaton and Failkhov were trying to cram in all these extra subplots, which never really got explained. If they toned that down, this would have been pretty good instead of just fair.
January 31, 2015
There was a neat germ of an idea in this trade, but ultimately it didn't work for me at all. The art was hard to follow, and the story was pretty choppy.
December 14, 2010
Pretty good, like the lingering around former crime scenes, but the additional jump into the supernatural.
Think the likes of Dexter or CSI meets X-files.
Think the likes of Dexter or CSI meets X-files.
March 25, 2011
Maybe every male character was supposed to look exactly alike... Maybe if I read it another three or four more times I'd get why things happened and who did them.
But I'm not.
But I'm not.
February 6, 2012
Found this one at the library. Creepy, something between sci-fi and fantasy, sort of like a CSI: Vampires. Pretty interesting story, but quite gruesome.
March 18, 2013
I am interested in seeing where the series goes in terms of the overall theme. The story has potential; and I'd like to think this particular book is a "filler" for exciting plot lines to come.
November 20, 2013
El título me llamó la atención pero la historia la van diluyendo hasta que lo interesante se vuelve tan simplón que simplemente uno ruega porque termine.
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