2021

Image’s “November” by Matt Fraction and Elsa Charretier is a four-part, gritty, crime thriller about three women who become ensnared within a violent plot perpetrated by corrupt police, and go about fighting for their lives amidst a tide of masculine violence. Interweaving multiple perspectives, it’s a story that blends noir crime fiction with hard-boiled mystery, while smoothly including impactful lesbian romances with depth and realism.

“November” was released as four graphic novels, serialized between November 2019 and March 2021 in beautiful 60-page hardcover editions. Each moody volume gives the story a sustained momentum where the reader is able to sit longer with each character and meditate on the colorized clues. Matt Fraction and Elsa Charretier plant such intricate devils in the details, relying on a reader’s keenest faculties of observation, that “November” might not appeal to some casual readers. Nonetheless, lovers of the hard-boiled and the noir will feel this is a masterpiece. [Read more…] about Best New Graphic Novel: Meditations in an Emergency – Review of Complex Noir-Thriller “November” [Parts I-IV]