Terry Moore continues the story of former Parker Girl Katina Choovanski (Katchoo, if you know what’s good for you) with a brand new series that has quite a bit of intrigue and more than the usual amount of murder.
The book (collecting issues 1-5 from the series) pulled me in from the first page, with the introduction of Mark Harris. Poor Mark, unshaven and miserable, drinking himself into a stupor at a tropical resort and regretting all of his life choices. Mark stumbles across a devastatingly beautiful woman, Alex, who just might be able to save his reputation, his freedom, and possibly his life. So it’s lucky (?) that Mark doesn’t see Alex proceed to brutally murder a grizzled beach bum who was kind of asking for it.
Don’t get too comfortable with these characters because they won’t be around for long.
In a seemingly unconnected event, the body of famous actress Piper May washes up on a beach. Katchoo is pulled into the mystery via her sister Tambi. It turns out Piper was one of Tambi’s Parker Girls; an interconnected web of spies who hide in plain sight as the wives and lovers of the rich and powerful. And Piper was married to billionaire Zackary May. Tambi has her own reasons for wanting to keep Zackary under surveillance, and now she wants Katchoo to get close to him while they figure out if he’s a murderer. It doesn’t take much to convince Katchoo; she used to be Zackary’s favorite Parker Girl, and Katchoo has a lot of leftover rage at anyone from that time in her life. Anyone who’s still alive, that is.
Moore shows us some of Katchoo and Bambi, a little of how Zackary May does “business”, and a quick scene at a pool with an utter lunatic who I’m kinda hoping we see more of. But most of the story so far is set around Tambi’s underlings Cherry Hammer and Becky The Gun Girl as they try to piece together the last few hours of Piper’s life. Longtime fans of Strangers In Paradise will recognize these two, and I’m thrilled that they’re getting a larger role here as they investigate Zackary May’s boat, muscle their way into an autopsy, break into a witness’s home, and basically intimidate the hell out of everyone. (“I’m liking that name, beautiful. You can hammer my cherry anytime.” “You’re not even the right species for me, little man.”)
Like all of the Strangers In Paradise storylines, there’s a shadowy force (or two) controlling things behind the scenes, fighting to either hide or reveal what’s really going on. And everyone has their own trauma coloring their reactions and motivations, so the twists and turns of this particular mystery are sure to be…complicated.
Some elements of the story either haven’t been fully explained or I’ve missed something somewhere. I’m never quite sure what the actual status of the Parker Girls is. Darcy Parker was assassinated after a very public outing of an organization that only works if it’s secret. And even though Cherry and Becky are sure to point out that officially the Parker Girls don’t actually exist, enough people know about them that surely you would be able to make the connection if the devastatingly beautiful woman cozying up to you has a Parker Lilly tattoo somewhere, right? I’m also a little unclear about a lie that was told early on in the series. It’s a fairly complex lie, one that needed to be acted out for at least a few days which…doesn’t make total sense. Sure, they have a reason for the truth to not get out, but I can’t quite figure why that particular lie, or why they thought it would work.
And then there’s the matter of the loose ends leftover from Moore’s previous stories. I’ve read every series that’s come out since Strangers in Paradise started up again, and all of them – Strangers in Paradise XXV, Five Years, Serial – have been complex tales that ended like slamming into a brick wall. Ten issues, done, next series please, leaving unanswered questions if not an out-and-out cliffhanger. Which leaves me to wonder what’s going to be left unresolved in issue ten of this series.
Whatever it is, I’ll be sure to read it, and whatever comes after, because I am here for all of it.
I’ve probably said this multiple times by now, but every individual issue of Moore’s comics is a gem. The black-and-white artwork is clean and expressive, equally good at showing the motion of a helicopter taking off from an expanse of desert, or a high-heeled shoe being driven through someone’s foot. With just a few lines and a couple of dots Moore can convey intimidated-but-still-ticked-off in just the face of a hotel receptionist (“Sir! I’m warning you, cover yourself or I will mace the hell out of you!”), and he can use intricate lineart to show the fine details of a close up expression: a beach bum’s snaggle teeth, Mark’s dopey misery, Tambi looking in awe at a gorgeous larger-than-life statue of Francine. (A statue that was made without Francine’s knowledge or permission and “purchased” by Katchoo from one of Francine’s college boyfriends and oh do I wish we could have seen that conversation.)
Francine, Casey, and the other more comedy-oriented characters haven’t made an appearance, so there’s slightly less madcap here than in some other of Moore’s works. We do have some fun bits: Mark and Alex in a dialog-free scene as they madly celebrate around a laptop, Mark’s headlong mostly-naked run across the hotel as everything goes wrong for him, Cherry and Becky breaking into an actor’s home in the middle of the night and trying to interrogate him as he and his lover have an argument about whether they do or don’t have an original painting by David Hockney. (“Why do you insist on telling everyone we don’t?” “Because it’s pretentious!“) It’s helpful to have some comic relief in between murders and trauma and ghostly images of how Becky might have been beaten to death aboard Zackary May’s yacht.
I suspect Zackary’s story is going to be a bit more complex than his dead-eyed stare would suggest, and the book ends on one hell of a cliffhanger. Fortunately issue six is already out, so you can always jump right to that if you don’t feel like waiting for Volume 2.