So, I've been burning through Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips' Criminal series and I'm driving myself crazy waiting for the last issue of 100 Bullets (I still can't decide if it was a mistake to read the five page preview that was online- holy shit), and I realize what it is about good noir that hits the vein for me. It's not the sex and violence, the booze, the grittiness, or the sharp (and vulgar) dialogue- I mean, it is, fuck yeah it is, but that's not the heart of it. It's not about the eternal fuck-up either.
It's about the moment and nothing else. Impulse and reaction. It's a hell of a way to live,and it usually leads to a bad end, but it's seductive too, because, really, there are no guarantees in life besides death. We try to voodoo it away with retirement accounts and insurance policies and vacation plans and a million other things, and that's all good, but the truth is smiling at us all in the mirror, just a few millimeters beneath the skin. Good noir rips the face right off, forces you to look at your own skull, then staples everything back into place. And it's all back where it was, but it never looks or feels quite right again.
Write. Time is short, my friends.
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