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The Killer (HC and Issues #5-6 of 10)
Posted 06 Feb 2008
Writer: Matz
Artist: Luc Jacamon
Publisher: Archaia Studios Press
5.00 out of 5 Stars
Reviewed by Kevin Agot
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“When you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into
you.”
— Frederich Nietzche
The Killer is a haunting, graphical masterpiece that
explores the intricate and intimate minutiae of a killer’s mind.
Writer Matz and Artist Luc Jacamon excellently depict the inner
conflict of guilt and conscience trumped by seemingly forced
rationalization and self-justification in the mind of a professional
killer. Not since Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment or
Nabokov’s Lolita has the journey into a man’s mind been both so
eloquently and brutally intriguing.
“The evocative artwork and personally
intimate narrative provide a disturbingly unique perspective on morals
gone fatally askew.”
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Luc Jacamon’s artwork is absolutely brilliant. Jacamon’s simple
and deft pencils and inks emphasize the contradiction of the
simplicity of his line work and the resultant beautifully complex and
highly detailed artwork.
Moreover, the lushly hued pages display a color palette rarely
seen in most modern comic books. The muted and understated
colors gently accentuate and breathe life into the book’s characters.
Matz’s journey into the nameless title character’s inner being is
an exploration of a man’s heart spooned out and discarded with each
kill. He has no scruples and no morality. There is a hair-raising
sequence in the story where the killer contemplates true friendship.
Lonely...isolated...detached. His only “friends” are the
victims whose lives he has viciously and abruptly cut short by
savagely murdering them. He rationalizes that they were his closest
friends because he knew everything about them as is wont for
preparation of his contracts. Ironically, he knew everything about
them, but they knew absolutely nothing about him.
The killer’s one true friend is an individual who had shaped him
into the man he is today. Perhaps his closest and most enduring
relationship in his life, Eduoard is driven to a guilt-ridden suicide.
He can no longer take the murderous lifestyle he leads. The message
is clear to everyone except the killer himself: money isn’t worth a
poisoned conscience, a hardened heart or a blackened soul.
The Killer is a European import that is arguably the best
comic book on the market today. The evocative artwork and personally
intimate narrative provide a disturbingly unique perspective on morals
gone fatally askew and a conscience slowly melting away.
—CCdC—
Cover image used without explicit permission in accordance with the "Fair Use" provision of US copyright law.
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