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Kid Maroon
Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer meets Encyclopedia Brown in the hard-boiled detective adventure KID MAROON, where big city crime and corruption can only be cracked by the Kid – or can it?
“Crimeville’s always been a lousy scum stain.” - Kid Maroon, the world’s only hard-boiled boy detective.
Two years ago, Walden Maroon outgrew his small town slice of Americana known as Tiny Falls, his loving parents, and the low stakes mysteries involving missing butterflies and stolen cookies. Since then, he’s dwelled within the gritty, gangster-ridden cesspit of a city known as Crimeville, where murders, vice, and corruption are the city’s bread and butter. Where the unholy trinity of Greed, Squalor, and Despair permeates both the air the citizens breathe and the ground on which they walk – and die. But at 12 years old, Kid is weary. When a string of horrific killings and arsons spring up in the streets, can he crack the case with his quick wits and slingshot? Or does Kid Maroon secretly yearn for what he’s never gotten to be … a kid?
From bestselling writer Christopher Cantwell (Iron Man, Doctor Doom, The Blue Flame, Halt and Catch Fire) and star artist Victor Santos (Polar, Violent Love)!
For fans of
Comics series, serials, and graphic Dick Tracy, The Spirit (Will Eisner), Sin City (Frank Miller), Richard Stark’s Parker series (Darwyn Cooke), Criminal (Ed Brubaker/Sean Philips), Reckless (Ed Brubaker/Sean Philips ),100 Bullets (Brian Azzarello/Eduardo Risso), The Question (Steve Ditko/Denny O’Neil/Denys Cowan), Road to Perdition (Max Allan Collins), Powers (Brian Michael Bendis/Michal Avon Oeming), EC Comics crime/suspense stories, hardboiled detective genre, and Golden Age comics.
Novels: Richard Stark’s (Donald E. Westlake’s)Parker Crime novels (including The Hunter and Kiss of Death), Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer books (including I, The Jury), Dennis Lahane books (including Mystic River and Shutter Island), Hard Case Crime, Dashiell Hammett’s Sam Spade (The Maltese Falcon) , Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe (Farewell, My Lovely and The Big Sleep), Dashiell Hammett’s Nick and Nora Charles (The Thin Man), John MacDonald’s Lew Archer (The Moving Target), Walter Mosley’s Easy Rawlins (Devil in a Blue Dress), and Max Allan Collins.
Films and series: BRICK (2005 film), movies and series based on the classic hardboiled novels and characters
“Crimeville’s always been a lousy scum stain.” - Kid Maroon, the world’s only hard-boiled boy detective.
Two years ago, Walden Maroon outgrew his small town slice of Americana known as Tiny Falls, his loving parents, and the low stakes mysteries involving missing butterflies and stolen cookies. Since then, he’s dwelled within the gritty, gangster-ridden cesspit of a city known as Crimeville, where murders, vice, and corruption are the city’s bread and butter. Where the unholy trinity of Greed, Squalor, and Despair permeates both the air the citizens breathe and the ground on which they walk – and die. But at 12 years old, Kid is weary. When a string of horrific killings and arsons spring up in the streets, can he crack the case with his quick wits and slingshot? Or does Kid Maroon secretly yearn for what he’s never gotten to be … a kid?
From bestselling writer Christopher Cantwell (Iron Man, Doctor Doom, The Blue Flame, Halt and Catch Fire) and star artist Victor Santos (Polar, Violent Love)!
For fans of
Comics series, serials, and graphic Dick Tracy, The Spirit (Will Eisner), Sin City (Frank Miller), Richard Stark’s Parker series (Darwyn Cooke), Criminal (Ed Brubaker/Sean Philips), Reckless (Ed Brubaker/Sean Philips ),100 Bullets (Brian Azzarello/Eduardo Risso), The Question (Steve Ditko/Denny O’Neil/Denys Cowan), Road to Perdition (Max Allan Collins), Powers (Brian Michael Bendis/Michal Avon Oeming), EC Comics crime/suspense stories, hardboiled detective genre, and Golden Age comics.
Novels: Richard Stark’s (Donald E. Westlake’s)Parker Crime novels (including The Hunter and Kiss of Death), Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer books (including I, The Jury), Dennis Lahane books (including Mystic River and Shutter Island), Hard Case Crime, Dashiell Hammett’s Sam Spade (The Maltese Falcon) , Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe (Farewell, My Lovely and The Big Sleep), Dashiell Hammett’s Nick and Nora Charles (The Thin Man), John MacDonald’s Lew Archer (The Moving Target), Walter Mosley’s Easy Rawlins (Devil in a Blue Dress), and Max Allan Collins.
Films and series: BRICK (2005 film), movies and series based on the classic hardboiled novels and characters
- GenresComics
Kindle Edition
Published September 23, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
October 19, 2025
This was pitched as the kid detective trope in a hard-boiled crime noir. That's pretty much exactly what it is and it's played straight; i.e., people acknowledge he's a kid, but he's an emancipated minor due to his detective skill.
The story involves a body found in a burnt down orphanage and the side-kick, Billy Beans, that Kid Maroon rescues from the fire. Other bodies start turning up hinting at a criminal conspiracy as Kid Maroon chafes at the rampant corruption but despises the idyllic small town life of his youth he found suffocating.
To be honest, I wasn't a fan of it and found the bit of history of the Kid Maroon comic by Pep Shepherd and its short tenure before being canceled over the outcry of it's cynical and graphic nature more interesting. The hard-boiled genre is hit-or-miss for me. I tend to like the punchy narrative of Dashiell Hammet but I prefer the deduction, noir pastiche, and slightly mercenary cynical do-gooder rather than the grit and corruption.
The story involves a body found in a burnt down orphanage and the side-kick, Billy Beans, that Kid Maroon rescues from the fire. Other bodies start turning up hinting at a criminal conspiracy as Kid Maroon chafes at the rampant corruption but despises the idyllic small town life of his youth he found suffocating.
To be honest, I wasn't a fan of it and found the bit of history of the Kid Maroon comic by Pep Shepherd and its short tenure before being canceled over the outcry of it's cynical and graphic nature more interesting. The hard-boiled genre is hit-or-miss for me. I tend to like the punchy narrative of Dashiell Hammet but I prefer the deduction, noir pastiche, and slightly mercenary cynical do-gooder rather than the grit and corruption.
October 15, 2025
The over-the-top noir detective narration is heavily done, for good and bad, and the “precocious kid detective” angle is cute. Unfortunately it’s overlong and too intermittently serious for what would be better as a lark that was 2/3 the length.
‘Corruption, the kind of stealing where no one gets hurt at all. Except everybody.”
“Rummaging through the pockets of the dead is a skill every orphan learns at a young age.”
‘Corruption, the kind of stealing where no one gets hurt at all. Except everybody.”
“Rummaging through the pockets of the dead is a skill every orphan learns at a young age.”
November 1, 2025
This fake character resurrected from the Golden Age would have worked better as satire than the ultra serious tone given. It's about a kid detective investigating a murder and the burning of an orphanage. There's no detective work though and it seems to just be a contest into how sad Cantwell could try and make this.
January 20, 2026
Mix of the Spirit, Dick Tracy and Goon
Enjoyed the pacing and art. It is a mix of Eisner's Spirit, Dick Tracy, and Powell's Goon. Worth the read.
Enjoyed the pacing and art. It is a mix of Eisner's Spirit, Dick Tracy, and Powell's Goon. Worth the read.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews