Newburn nº 01

Newburn #1-8

by Chip Zdarsky, Jacob Phillips, Diego de los Santos (Translator)

Easton Newburn is a private detective without loyalties, investigating conflicts between rival crime factions. With his assistant Emily, Newburn follows murderers, arsonists, and corrupt officials--while trying to stay out of their crosshairs.

This new series from Eisner winner CHIP ZDARSKY (DAREDEVIL, SEX CRIMINALS) and rising star JACOB PHILLIPS (THAT TEXAS BLOOD) follows Newburn as he does jobs for every criminal organization in New York City, collecting enemies along the way.

Collects NEWBURN #1-8.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Crime, Mystery, Noir, Fiction, Comic Book

168 pages, Hardcover

First published September 6, 2022

About the author

Chip Zdarsky is a Canadian comic book artist and journalist. He was born Steve Murray but is known by his fan base as Chip Zdarsky, and occasionally Todd Diamond. He writes and illustrates an advice column called Extremely Bad Advice for the Canadian national newspaper National Post's The Ampersand, their pop culture section's online edition. He is also the creator of Prison Funnies and Monster Cops.

Source: Wikipedia.

Reviews

[Alexander Peterhans · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a book about a plank of wood with telepathic powers.

Newburn, the main character of this book, has almost no personality. He investigates stuff for New York crime families - he's a mafia cop. In fact, that should've been the title for this book, Mafia Cop. (Or Hn, Volume Hn.)

Newburn must be blessed with telepathy, because that's the only explanation I can come up with, for the way mafia cop solves mysteries. He just sort of.. knows. There is no logical path from what is presented in the stories, to his solutions. There are no clues, nothing is ever explained. Mafia cop knows, man!

Not only does he know, Newburn Is Never Wrong. About anything. Newburn knows almost everything about almost everyone, so in the one-in-a-million chance he doesn't know something, he'll still know who has the info. He will then also know everything about that person, so Newburn always has leverage.

So you'll get Newburn asking some simp for a name, the simp says he doesn't know, Newburn says he knows what the simp has done, and then the simp, appropriately humbled, tells him the name. What Newburn has on the simp, ah who cares about the details. Mafia cop knows, man!

Weirdest thing is that his sidekick, Emily, is seen in a flashback saying she loves reading mysteries, because they're like puzzles she can solve. Which is exactly what this book doesn't do. There's no puzzle. There is only mafia cop.

The book is interspersed with diary entries, supposedly from Emily's diary. I have a problem with these - why is Emily keeping a diary on this stuff? Why would you keep notes on all the illegal stuff you and mafia cop are doing?

It seems pretty obvious that these diary entries are exposition dumps, that only offer to explain what you might be missing. From a writing standpoint, it feels clunky.

(Something bad happened in Emily's past, which is only seeded riiiight before it becomes relevant in the main storyline. Emily also seems weirdly blase about it.)

The book feels like it's cloned from a Brubaker/Phillips book, and something went wrong in the process. Bits of DNA are missing. They tried to fill in the gaps with bits of John Wick DNA, but they didn't take!

Anyway, look forward to seeing exactly one (1) season of this adapted by one of your favourite streaming services.

Hn? Hn!!

(Picked up an ARC through Edelweiss)

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Re-read 11/5/2024
Still awesome. Figured I’d run back through this in preparation to finally read vol 2. Yeah, if you still haven’t read this, definitely check it out. I could see this being a Netflix series.

Yeah, this was dope! Newburn use to be a cop, a detective. Ended up quitting and now he works as a private eye for the 5 crime families in NY. He’s the guy that solves the tough cases in the crime world so these crime bosses don’t go to war with each other. He’s really good and the crime families haves declared him untouchable. Starts of with him solving smaller cases but the jobs ramp up and we get into all types of drama and crazy stuff from the past coming up complicating things. Any fan of crime noir stories, definitely check this one out.

[James DeSantis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Holy shit was this fun.

Basically a Ex-cop decides to work for the mafia families solving crimes and fixing shit. Thanks to his experience he knows how not only the families work but also his fellow cops. He's almost like a Private Eye for the worst scum on the planet. And when he brings on a "sidekick" of sorts things get really messy.

Lots of great turns and twist. Newburn goes from a stoic, tad boring character, to full blown fucking psycho and I love it. The ending really ramps up and those last 3 issues are excellent. I'm looking forward to reading more and some excellent art to boot.

A 4 out of 5.

[Lukasz · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good noir story about an ex-cop solving crimes for his mafia clients. Great art, good writing, and it does noir the way I like it.

[Rod Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

Easton Burton is a calculating ruthless cross between Sherlock Holmes and Richard Stark's Parker, and he walks a razor blade tightrope as the neutral troubleshooter for all the major criminal organizations of New York City. He puts out the little fires before they become city-razing conflagrations. Mostly, he solves murders to prevent the wronged parties from taking the wrong revenge. They're not really fair-play mysteries, though, they're more like thrillers with twisty endings, usually only lasting a chapter.

He's recently taken on a whip-smart protege who has some complicating baggage, causing the first multi-chapter story arc near the end of the volume. At various points she is called Emily Walker, Angie Walker, and Emily Star. I'm not sure if those were editorial fails or a series of aliases. I mean, she also uses a fourth name in one chapter, but at least that one was acknowledged as a cover.

The whole thing is fairly typical tough guy crime fiction with characters who are fairly stock and a concept that's quite a bit difficult to swallow. But it's just interesting enough to get a thumbs up.

The only thing that really annoys me is the choice of the British and Canadian creators to let their spelling for words like "neighbour," "favour," and "armour" and phrases like "fish and chips" creep into this American setting. It's jarring and distracting.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a hard-boiled detective story for the defund the police generation, featuring an ex-copper in NYC who was so clean amidst all the dirty ones the only way he could follow his moral compass...was to quit and work full-time for not just one Mob family, but all of them?

As ludicrous as the premise may be the stories are engaging, and our titular character's relationship with his new protégée works well to give us a newcomer's eye view into his warped world.

As usual with organized crime stories there's an unfortunate amount of ethnic stereotyping but I guess Zdarsky tries to paint every demographic with the same grimy brush.

I don't know if there will be more volumes but if so I'm in.

[Adam M · Rating 3 out of 5]

You can read my full review for No Flying No Tights here. I thought this story was ok, but the art from Jacob Phillips was my favorite part. I also understand the criticism and while I wouldn't call it underwhelming, when people say it I get where they are coming from. I think it wants to be better than it is, but my friend Alexander gives it maybe the best review I've read in a while and you should read it too - a blistering review that technically isn't wrong.

[Anthony · Rating 4 out of 5]

This looks like another hit for Chip. And Jacobs art is a bit like his dads without being too much like it, which is cool. The trade will be better though because the single comics are half a different book entirely, which I started skipping eventually because it wasn’t that good

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Went in blind on the strength of the name Zdarsky. You should too.

[Sem · Rating 5 out of 5]

The last time I said I'd read anything an author writes, I was talking about Mark Russell and Tom Taylor and, uh, boy. Their style started to wear on me, the samey structures fraying at the ends. I still enjoy their works but not in the same way I did at the beginning.

But I'm going to repeat myself and say that anything Chip Zdarsky writes is worth reading, because, based on the strength of Daredevil and now Newburn, he just does not miss. The capper to this volume is a tense, excellent issue that really shifts the image of Newburn that the readers got used to seeing. It's a well-crafted character study and it's also rendered stunningly by Jacob Phillips, who makes the story twice as atmospheric with gorgeous style. Hell of a book.

[Frédéric · Rating 2 out of 5]

2,5*

Brrrrr. Think I caught a cold.

Just reading this book if you can believe it. Cold mafia cop does dispassionate "murder-of-the-month" investigations. That’s it.

It’s arguably well told mind you. But in the end I just don’t care. Easton is as charismatic as a kitchen sink. His holmesian deductive powers get old real fast and his own personal "Watson" left me, well, cold. So she likes solving stuff? What do I care? When her "secret" is revealed in issue 6 I had lost interest already and the half-baked end twist fell short of rekindling my interest.

Jacob Phillips art is basically the same: factually well done but more functional than incarnate.

What does that tell us? Efficiency and functionality don’t make up for heart and emotion.

[Rory Wilding · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chip Zdarsky has been a busy man as of late. Apart from being close to playing Reed Richards for Marvel Studios’ reboot of the Fantastic Four, Zdarsky has been writing Daredevil for Marvel and Batman for DC at the same time. In addition, he still has time for Image Comics, where he co-created Sex Criminals with Matt Fraction. Whilst his Substack comic Public Domain is being printed via Image, Zdarsky is writing another detective series: Newburn.

Please click here for my full review.

[Dakota Morgan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Clearly an homage to the Ed Brubaker style (including borrowing Sean Phillips' son for the art), Newburn meets that high standard with engaging characters and compelling mysteries. Easton Newburn is the on-call PI for the New York City mobs - all of them. Essentially, he keeps the peace by being very good at his job and by knowing his charges intimately. In the first issue, Newburn picks up a sidekick, one whose story receives a welcome expansion in the final issues of the volume.

Each issue acts as a mini-murder mystery, slowly building to a bigger murder at the conclusion. It's not exactly a can't-put-down narrative, but each issue is unique and fun. Newburn is one of those Sherlock-esque characters that's so compelling. A savant, always in charge of any situation, but does have a breaking point. We see it once in this volume and hopefully will see it more going forward. I'd like to see this guy get tested now that I know he's eminently capable.

[Shannon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a bad series, but seems it was cancelled.

Individual issue reviews: #1 | #2 | #3 | #4 | #5 | #6 | #7 | #8

Total review score: 2.8

[Fraser Simons · Rating 3 out of 5]

It takes a long time for this to introduce something like interesting stakes, and when it does, it’s after a kind of formula has been established that deflates the tension. He’s the Sherlock of fixers, basically. And he solves problems in circuitous ways that make it so one day, when he’s not super smart and read all the angles, etc. etc., he might catch a bullet. Until then he’s swinging his thing around solving problems, which is why he needs a Watson to get into trouble he can solve. It’s fine, and at least not super derivative, but also not compelling enough for me to pick up the next volume. But I also wouldn’t describe me as someone remotely interested in gang/mafia crime-centric stories either.

[Liam · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5*

[Ignacio · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un intermediario entre las bandas que controlan el bajo mundo de Nueva York (Easton Newburn) se echa una aprendiz a la que enseña su oficio (Emily). Con una construcción episódica, cada comic-book gira alrededor de un caso que les pone en un aprieto y fuerza la inventiva de Newburn para atar los cabos y progresar hasta el siguiente brete. Esta historia está bien y no lo hace nada mal Jacob Phillips, que resuelve su inexperiencia con un clasicismo efectivo (y su buen uso del color, más centrado en crear atmósferas que en buscar la verosimilitud de la escena). Tiene cosas curiosas como que el guión compense la falta de textos de apoyo con páginas del diario de Emily, que aportan un bagaje que llena huecos que pueden ser necesarios para entender su trabajo o su pasado. Al conjunto le falta un poco de entidad/garra, pero puede ganarla en próximas entregas cuando el avispero en que viven los personajes se agite todavía más.

[Theediscerning · Rating 3 out of 5]

In an inverse of the old poacher-turned-gamekeeper, Newburn is a gamekeeper-turned-halfway house, an ex-cop who now acts as private eye for all the huge NY crime gangs (including the ones who wear polo shirts they're so hard). He makes sure if one gang has beef against another there's a semi-legit way for him to solve whatever crime will upset their status quo, and life goes on. This book shows him gain an unlikely assistant – he calls her clever but her presence is about as legit as all those goons from centuries of genre fiction having the thickest sidekicks going, and especially so when her past comes to catch up with her, and round the arc out.

It's all perfectly OK, but boy you get the feeling of having seen this kind of wonder-brain, Mr Indestructible, and his perfect ability to say the right thing and get others to say the exact thing he needs of them, far too often before now. I tend to find a book looking at one of the 'families' on the boring side, but unfortunately six of them bouncing off each other proves to be not much better. And why one of the Mister Bigs looks like a betting shop staffer on his Friday night off still boggles.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very solid crime book that follows former cop and now private detective Easton Newburn and his assistant Emily as they works to prevent war between various criminal organisations. He does this by working for them, tracking down those who wrong them, and mediating between them where necessary.

I like the ambiguious nature of these characters. They're not heroes, but they don't quite feel like villains. You get the impression that at times Newburn isn't doing this just for the money, but it's unclear what he wants.

It's a very strong first volume, Chip Zdarsky drops enough crumbs for future storylines while also creating a very good picture of this world and the people in it.

Jacob Phillips does a great job with the art. He's clearly taken a lot of inspiration from his father Sean, but manages to put his own spin on it.

Definitely looking forward to more from this series.

[Ben A · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chip Zdarsky has quickly become one of those writers that I can count on to deliver a solid story, whatever company he writes for, whichever character he takes on. He's become to writer on both the main Batman ongoing series, as well as Daredevil (easily 2 of my favorite characters in all of fiction). When I saw that he was teaming with Jacob Phillips to do a crime book, I was in. Was it the book I thought it was going to be? Nope, and that's a good thing. It went in a direction I could not have imagined and that made it all the better. I can't say enough good things about the series, and I will be eagerly keeping my eye out for the next volume.

Special Thanks to Image Comics, Diamond Books and Edelweiss Plus for a digital ARC.

[Dair · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nice little mob story with a twist. Intrigued to see where it goes next.

[Michael J. · Rating 4 out of 5]

While this is not perfect, it definitely satisfies the urge to read a good, compelling crime comic with interesting characters. NEWBURN straddles the line between classic noir detective fiction and contemporary crime. Volume One collects the first eight issues, which I read in the monthly singles.

Easton Newburn is a calculating, psychoanalytic, persuasive, fit-for-his-age, hard-ass character. Zdarsky doesn’t explore his background and history much at all, but lets the reveals come through Newburn’s actions and dialogue. Newburn is a retired NYC cop who’s now a private detective working for all the various crime families, solving murders and smoothing the fever burn before gang wars erupt. In that way, he’s kind of a peacemaker and serves the gangs (creating alliances), the public, and NYC police department.

The initial two-thirds of Volume One are very episodic, wrap up in one issue, and are a bit twisty. Sometimes it seems impossible the way that Newburn evaluates the situation and obtains leads amidst a lack of clear evidence, as if this is done instinctively. But, unlike Sherlock Holmes who usually explains his deductions, Newburn just moves forward without comment.

Also, because Newburn works for every single one of the crime families without favoritism, he is protected and “untouchable”. That allows him to take some liberties with that gang relationship that in other circumstances would get him killed.

In the debut story, “Carmine’s Apartment”, Carmine Albano (son of the head of the Albano crime family) is killed in his apartment for ten kilos of coke which allegedly Carmine stole from his own family. Newton doesn’t completely buy into the story of neighbor Emily who describes a man she saw running away from the scene. But, instead of turning her into the cops, he offers her a job as his assistant.

In “Everything I Told You Was True” (Issue #2), Newburn gets to the bottom of a warehouse fire that the Albano family is suspected of starting. Murders of various crime family members almost sets off a war between Italians, Japanese, and Russians before Newburn figures it out in “We’ve All Lost Men.” Newburn is coerced into working for the police department to solve the murder of a cop. “Bring Some Heat” is the one story that really details how clever Newburn is and how he works both sides to his advantage.

Newburn spends some time in prison in “Luck Ran Out” to expose a snitch. The remaining three issues of Volume One tell a continuing story of how Newburn reveals his goodwill, heart and principles when he helps Emily avoid a nasty situation from her past (when she had a connection to both the police department and the Albano family) when new information is uncovered about what happened.

Every issue includes a serialized back-up crime story spotlighting new creators. “Brooklyn Zirconia” by Nadia Shammas and Ziyed Yusef Ayoub is featured in Issues #1 through #4 and details a jewelry store heist that turns out to be rigged to obtain insurance money and includes family conflicts between brothers. “Spook-A-Rama” runs through Issues #5-#8. Casey Gilly and Soo Lee create a story of murder at the Coney Island amusement park and the rebellious female goth worker who solves it for the sluggish police department.

[Elizabeth (Miss Eliza) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Teenage me, who was mafia obsessed, would have loved this comic. It has a solid premise, with Newburn working to maintain peace among the gangs by being in the pay of all. His assistant, "Emily," is also an interesting character with a past. Both have reasons to dislike the police and a desire to line their own pockets. The art, as expected, was beautiful. Jacob Phillips is really following in his father's footsteps. My only real gripe, other than the editor should have Americanized the spelling of cheque because this takes place in New York, is that I didn't feel it was original enough to earn a permanent place on my bookshelves.

[Livresse de Lola · Rating 5 out of 5]

C’était trop trop trop bien ! Les mini enquêtes s’enchaînent super vite et j’aime trop le duo Newburn/Emily.

J’ai trop hâte de lire la suite vraiment je suis conquise.

[Michelle Villmer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought this on a whim on Free Comic Book Day and boy, am I glad I did. If you enjoy dark thrillers with lots of twists, crime families and crooked cops, you'll enjoy this!

[Tom Mathews · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great noir graphic novel on a par with the Criminal and Reckless series.

[Dave Schaafsma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Former cop Newburn has become the “Neutral Investigator” for all the various crime families of New York City. If your latest reference to “crime families of New York City”is the Italian mob scene of the Godfather, the mob scene in this comics series updates to include the Japanese Yakuza, the Russians, and more, though the politics seem essentially the same, that we have to support each other and live as one Uber Family for our shared Ultimate Purpose: Money. The mob(s) are essentially just capitalist organizations, of course.

Newburn is this middle-aged tough white guy; you know the type--ruthless, unprincipled, never smiles, doesn’t talk much, can take on several people carrying guns with his bare fists and level them. As a former cop he makes it clear that he thinks the NYPD is just another type of corrupt gang, except it is one that operates in the daylight while the other gangs work in the dark. Newburn works with the cops to solve just enough crimes to satisfy them, but his principal job is to make peace between the various mobs of New York. He’s a fixer, an investigator. A delicate job, and all of the principal parties hate and respect him.

There is nothing all that surprising about this noir crime story so far, and neither is it surprising that Newburn seeks out a young and talented black woman. Emily, to partner with who has plenty of her own reasons to hate the cops. Entries from her journal (maybe we’ll find out why she keeps a journal but it isn't particularly interesting or useful so far) kinda commenting on Newburn and the cases. So it’s Holmes and Watson, right.

I’d rate this first volume about a 3.6 or so on the story and characterization, and I’ll explain why I’m reading it; 1) it’s crime comics, my current go-to comics genre; 2) I saw that it was drawn by Jacob Phillips, the son of one of the GOAT illustrators Sean Phillips of Criminal fame, who mentored his son in the comics trade, getting him to do coloring for a lot of the Brubaker-Phillips team; 3) I read Phillips’s That Texas Blood and liked it, am reading it.

Why 3.6 rounded up? I see at a glance that most people are into this because of Chip Zdarsky, fine, and I know it’s not fair to compare, maybe, but I think that the most successful crime comics are small and focused worlds, not multi-mob sagas. I think it’s okay writing, but when I compare it to Mr. Ed, well. . . I think maybe the most interesting thing about the series in the first volume is the artwork of Jacob Phillips, which owes quite a bit to Daddy Sean, but I don’t have a problem with that; it is good and worthy Phillips family work, better than most, and different from the kind of artwork he is doing on That Texas Blood, which is a plus, so I round up from the 3.6.

[Alex Sarll]

Sean Phillips' son Jacob really is a chip off the old block, though sadly he's skipped his old man's golden age doing grand guignol, Tom of Finland-influenced art for headfucking queer SF like Devlin Waugh and gone straight to the modern crime comics bit. Ah well. Zdarsky's script at least has more of a hook than much of Brubaker's stuff, which by this point is mainly just relying on brand recognition. To wit, Easton Newburn is an investigator employed by New York's organised crime families to keep the peace between them, thus preventing gang wars which are, after all, bad for business, and business is what they're really about, or ought to be – the way some gangsters are more concerned with throwing their weight around for its own sake is a recurring theme, though maybe not as much of one as it could be. Newburn himself, and his reluctant new recruit sidekick Emily, strongly suggest this is intended as a TV series pitch: he's cold, ostensibly charmless but in fact imposing, with the nicely memeable tic of going 'Hn' when he catches a crucial detail – a perfect role for a character actor wanting to turn lead, or a former lead getting on a bit and wanting to show they've still got it. She, meanwhile, brings a bit more fire, not to mention making sure it's not just a show about an old white guy. The collection even has that structure where it's case of the week, done in one stories, until it isn't, to show how the season would go. Not that it's as insultingly flimsy as some comics-as-pitches; this is still a perfectly passable read, not just an elevator pitch that bloated. But I nevertheless suspect that, for all that American media is understandably keen to reinvent the procedurals on which their TV schedules depend in the wake of BLM, having your investigators as ex-cops working for outright crooks is maybe not quite the ethical reboot you're after, not even if you do have an issue where the police union try to engage Newburn's services, and in which their boss openly states that the police are just another gang. Perhaps, but you know who else are definitely criminal gangs? Criminal gangs.

Also – I understand that the singles had back-up stories by other creators. At least in the Edelweiss ARC, this collection does not include those.

[Clint · Rating 4 out of 5]

Zdarsky’s version of a Brubaker/Phillips crime story, right down to getting a Phillips to draw and color it. It certainly looks the part, has the slick, world-weary tone down, and I like the concept of a fixer shared across all the big NYC crime families, but the characterization isn’t quite there yet and the story beats jump much faster than Brubaker’s more naturalistic pacing. I’d love it if Zdarsky lets future cases stretch their legs a little and does less hand-waving of breaks in the cases; I also hope he leans into the darker undercurrents that begin peeking out from the surface rationalizations Newburn offers early on.

In any case, Newburn vol1 is an enjoyable crime read, and worth checking out while you wait for a new Reckless book.

[Ricardo Nuno Silva · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this series.
If you are looking for a good dark/noir novel, with great art, a strong plot involving the top crime gangs (think the Mafia, Yakusa, etc) and a mysterious non-likeable main character, search no more!

You're in for a ride!!!

(Can't wait to read new stories of Newburn and his sidekick.)