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Union Station
Kansas City, 1933. Frank Nash is a petty criminal who has been pinched by the Feds and is being brought back into town by train. When FBI agent Reed Vetterli heads down to Union Station to meet Nash and his uniformed escort, he has no reason to suspect that there will be any action. Neither does Charles Thompson, a reporter sent down to the station just to see what the fuss is for. Little do they know that Frank's buddy, Vern Miller, is going to bust him out. Nash may not be a big time player, but he's still earned some loyalty. The resulting clash ends in a massacre, with no one knowing who pulled the trigger first - or even who pulled it at all. Rumor has it that Pretty Boy Floyd was on the scene, but no one knows for sure, and J. Edgar Hoover doesn't particularly care. He just wants Floyd's butt in an electric chair, and when Vetterli, Miller, and Thompson find themselves in the way of Hoover's justice, they can't duck for cover fast enough.
112 pages, Paperback
First published November 5, 2003
1 person is currently reading
38 people want to read
About the author
Ande Parks
423 books21 followersAnde Parks has worked on several projects with Phil Hester, including Nightbreed (Marvel), Rust (Malibu), Fringe (Caliber), and Freaks Amour (Dark Horse). Currently he inks Anima, Steel and Superboy, all for DC.
Ande Parks (born October 1, 1964) is a professional American comic book artist, known for his work as an inker and writer in the industry. His greatest notoriety has come from his stint with fellow artist Phil Hester on DC Comics' Green Arrow series from 2001 to 2004 and writing the graphic novels Union Station and Capote in Kansas by Oni Press. He grew up in the suburbs of Kansas City and currently lives in Baldwin City, Kansas with his wife and two children.
Parks began his professional career as an inker in comic books with Dark Horse Comics. He has inked the penciled artwork of such titles as Wonder Woman, Catwoman, Superman, Daredevil and Spider-Man. His artistic style has won him praise in the comic books industry, including an industry Harvey nomination as best inker. His idols and influences include Neal Adams, Klaus Janson, Jack Kirby, Dick Giordano, and Mike Grell. Parks has stated in at least one on-line interview that he inks with Hunt 102 and Brause 511 pens and a Raphael #3 brush. For characters from the comic books, Parks has acknowledged he has most enjoyed Batman and Captain America as his favorite characters.
He is probably best known for his work on the relaunched Green Arrow comic book series beginning in 2001, which he inked over his frequent collaborator Phil Hester. On Green Arrow, Hester and Parks worked with writers Kevin Smith, Brad Meltzer, and Judd Winick over their approximate 40-issue run. The book has been collected into several volumes. The American Library Association called it one of the best books for young adults. Parks and Hester have also done work on DC Comics' Nightwing with writer Devin Grayson, allowing Parks to work within the Batman family of characters, and the new revamped Ant-Man comic book for Marvel Comics in 2006-2007.
Although better known for his artwork, Parks considers himself to be more of a writer than artist. He has contributed several articles in comic book trade magazines, such as Draw!, geared towards critiques of artwork and professional tips for inkers. Parks' combined his inking style with his fondness for writing when he created the superhero spoof Uncle Slam & Fire Dog for Action Planet Comics, based to a certain extent on his love of Marvel Comics' Captain America. Uncle Slam appeared in three issues of the Action Planet anthology book series, and in two issues of his own book in the early- to mid-1990s. The character also appeared in a completely on-line comic book for Komicwerks. A new Uncle Slam book, "Uncle Slam Fights Back", was released in the summer of 2008.
For graphic novels, he has often turned to his neighboring region in the Midwest as source material for his writing projects. To date Parks has steered towards writing what is best classified as historical fiction. He has credited Alan Moore's From Hell as being a large influence in his decision to pursue writing in the historical fiction genre. In 2004, Oni Press published Park's first original graphic novel, Union Station. The book dealt with the events surrounding the Kansas City massacre, which took place in 1933 in Kansas City, Missouri, and helped J. Edgar Hoover make the F.B.I. a powerful organization in law enforcement and government for decades to come. Eduardo Barreto provided the artwork, done in black-&-white to give the piece more of a Depression-era period look.
In 2005 Parks returned to the genre of historical fiction with Capote In Kansas, drawn by Chris Samnee. The book details the time Truman Capote spent in Kansas while he worked on his literary masterpiece, In Cold Blood.
Continuing on with the Marvel Universe of characters, Parks co-plotted with Ed Brubaker and wrote "Blood of the Tarantula" fo
Ande Parks (born October 1, 1964) is a professional American comic book artist, known for his work as an inker and writer in the industry. His greatest notoriety has come from his stint with fellow artist Phil Hester on DC Comics' Green Arrow series from 2001 to 2004 and writing the graphic novels Union Station and Capote in Kansas by Oni Press. He grew up in the suburbs of Kansas City and currently lives in Baldwin City, Kansas with his wife and two children.
Parks began his professional career as an inker in comic books with Dark Horse Comics. He has inked the penciled artwork of such titles as Wonder Woman, Catwoman, Superman, Daredevil and Spider-Man. His artistic style has won him praise in the comic books industry, including an industry Harvey nomination as best inker. His idols and influences include Neal Adams, Klaus Janson, Jack Kirby, Dick Giordano, and Mike Grell. Parks has stated in at least one on-line interview that he inks with Hunt 102 and Brause 511 pens and a Raphael #3 brush. For characters from the comic books, Parks has acknowledged he has most enjoyed Batman and Captain America as his favorite characters.
He is probably best known for his work on the relaunched Green Arrow comic book series beginning in 2001, which he inked over his frequent collaborator Phil Hester. On Green Arrow, Hester and Parks worked with writers Kevin Smith, Brad Meltzer, and Judd Winick over their approximate 40-issue run. The book has been collected into several volumes. The American Library Association called it one of the best books for young adults. Parks and Hester have also done work on DC Comics' Nightwing with writer Devin Grayson, allowing Parks to work within the Batman family of characters, and the new revamped Ant-Man comic book for Marvel Comics in 2006-2007.
Although better known for his artwork, Parks considers himself to be more of a writer than artist. He has contributed several articles in comic book trade magazines, such as Draw!, geared towards critiques of artwork and professional tips for inkers. Parks' combined his inking style with his fondness for writing when he created the superhero spoof Uncle Slam & Fire Dog for Action Planet Comics, based to a certain extent on his love of Marvel Comics' Captain America. Uncle Slam appeared in three issues of the Action Planet anthology book series, and in two issues of his own book in the early- to mid-1990s. The character also appeared in a completely on-line comic book for Komicwerks. A new Uncle Slam book, "Uncle Slam Fights Back", was released in the summer of 2008.
For graphic novels, he has often turned to his neighboring region in the Midwest as source material for his writing projects. To date Parks has steered towards writing what is best classified as historical fiction. He has credited Alan Moore's From Hell as being a large influence in his decision to pursue writing in the historical fiction genre. In 2004, Oni Press published Park's first original graphic novel, Union Station. The book dealt with the events surrounding the Kansas City massacre, which took place in 1933 in Kansas City, Missouri, and helped J. Edgar Hoover make the F.B.I. a powerful organization in law enforcement and government for decades to come. Eduardo Barreto provided the artwork, done in black-&-white to give the piece more of a Depression-era period look.
In 2005 Parks returned to the genre of historical fiction with Capote In Kansas, drawn by Chris Samnee. The book details the time Truman Capote spent in Kansas while he worked on his literary masterpiece, In Cold Blood.
Continuing on with the Marvel Universe of characters, Parks co-plotted with Ed Brubaker and wrote "Blood of the Tarantula" fo
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
February 7, 2017
If you’re ever in my part of the world you can go to Union Station and see the holes on its exterior that legend says are from some of the bullets fired during the Kansas City Massacre. As always, science has to ruin everything and modern tests have called that claim into question. That’s actually fitting because the origin of those holes is now as murky as almost everything else that happened that day.
What is known is that on June 17, 1933, a federal prisoner named Frank Nash was being transported to Leavenworth through Union station by federal agents and KC police officers. A gunfight broke out just outside the station that left several of the cops and Nash himself dead. The federal investigation claimed that gangsters Pretty Boy Floyd, Adam Richetti, and Vernon Miller were the gunmen who tried to free Nash. In the aftermath J. Edgar Hoover used the incident to help build up the power of his small United States Bureau of Investigation into what we now know as the FBI. However, there’s been a lot of questions raised about who actually did the shooting and what really happened that day.
Comic book artist and KC native Ande Park wrote this, and the results are interesting if you’re into the true crime stories of this era. He obviously researched the subject and his notes at the end where he explains the hows and whys of what he depicted, including changes to known facts, are a nice touch. I particularly like the way that the casual corruption of KC at the time is part of the story. The art by Eduardo Barreto has a clean style that fits the time period it was depicting.
Unfortunately, the story of the KC Massacre is a big complicated mess, and it’s not a natural fit for a fairly short graphic novel. It’d probably need to be something comparable to Alan Moore’s take on Jack the Ripper in From Hell to really do it right, and while it gets the point across it seems a little quick and confusing.
Still, I’m a KC guy with an interest in history like this so it was well worth a read. And if you’re looking for a deeper dive into how Hoover used the Deperession crime wave to boost himself into a seat of real power I’d also highly recommend Public Enemies.
What is known is that on June 17, 1933, a federal prisoner named Frank Nash was being transported to Leavenworth through Union station by federal agents and KC police officers. A gunfight broke out just outside the station that left several of the cops and Nash himself dead. The federal investigation claimed that gangsters Pretty Boy Floyd, Adam Richetti, and Vernon Miller were the gunmen who tried to free Nash. In the aftermath J. Edgar Hoover used the incident to help build up the power of his small United States Bureau of Investigation into what we now know as the FBI. However, there’s been a lot of questions raised about who actually did the shooting and what really happened that day.
Comic book artist and KC native Ande Park wrote this, and the results are interesting if you’re into the true crime stories of this era. He obviously researched the subject and his notes at the end where he explains the hows and whys of what he depicted, including changes to known facts, are a nice touch. I particularly like the way that the casual corruption of KC at the time is part of the story. The art by Eduardo Barreto has a clean style that fits the time period it was depicting.
Unfortunately, the story of the KC Massacre is a big complicated mess, and it’s not a natural fit for a fairly short graphic novel. It’d probably need to be something comparable to Alan Moore’s take on Jack the Ripper in From Hell to really do it right, and while it gets the point across it seems a little quick and confusing.
Still, I’m a KC guy with an interest in history like this so it was well worth a read. And if you’re looking for a deeper dive into how Hoover used the Deperession crime wave to boost himself into a seat of real power I’d also highly recommend Public Enemies.
October 6, 2023
Exceptionally well done GN that looks at the birth of the FBI - art is taunt and stark. It really is fascinating how law enforcement (LE) has evolved in the US; the jurisdictional issues (in my opinion) often hamper a unified response to crime. To this day there are many issues that federal/state/local LE should be working on much more closely.
January 24, 2016
This is a nonfiction graphic novel about the FBI shootout at Kansas City, 1933. That event was used by the FBI to expand their agencies in their fight against organized crime; this was the day and age of Public Enemies such as Baby Face Nelson and John Dillinger. I like how well researched this book was for a graphic novel. It even has endnotes and historical citation! The book argues that the FBI blamed Pretty Boy Floyd for the shootout when in actually he wasn’t involved and that the shooting began with an accidental weapons discharged of a shotgun by an law enforcement officer. It’s interesting to see how the FBI director J. Edgar Hoover exploited this event to grow his agency and the official version is filled with a lot of holes. I enjoyed it for it being a graphic novel, a historical work and a mystery of sort.
January 21, 2019
You may want to know the "nuts and bolts" about this event in history (ZERO dates are revealed*) before committing-
ESPECIALLY if you want to absorb any history-worth-knowing (truths, omissions and obvious lies) because the event and case that followed were only solved to the extent that BeHooved J. Edgar.
This mock-up suffers from the intrinsic difficulty of dealing with a historical event that will never be known correctly since the actual facts couldn't be taken out of those involved while they lived. This treatment needed to mix the facts with previous opinions AND keep to a page limit. THAT DOES NOT EFFECT THE RATING.
The artist did not come close to drawing unique enough characters BUT he had his own intrinsic difficulty of them all being white men around the same age that dressed pretty much the same. He still could have done much better so he takes solid blame.
A Dramitis Personae would have tremendously helped distinguish the characters and would have also addressed the following problem with this ambitious (The effort is what really counts to me and what gives it ***) project.
The unforgivable flaw was how often the scenes drastically changed without enough clarity about where we were and why we were there which also made the questions of "who?" amplify.
*Why wasn't there ANY of the three "Month-Day-Year" at the start of the scenes when they were known?
I went back through the entire book and NOT ONCE DID EVEN A YEAR APPEAR- there was even a known gravestone intentionally blurred out! HISTORICAL EVENTS WITHOUT DATES ARE CRIMINAL!!
Even in the Footnotes you only get a few which aren't even the important ones! He says that one part of the story was in 1933 BUT it was clearly to brag that he researched what the big hit was playing then on the radio! He also reveals when people would die years later- even when one would get arrested BUT LEAVES OUT EVERY YEAR-MONTH-DAY YOU WILL ACTUALLY WANT!
ESPECIALLY if you want to absorb any history-worth-knowing (truths, omissions and obvious lies) because the event and case that followed were only solved to the extent that BeHooved J. Edgar.
This mock-up suffers from the intrinsic difficulty of dealing with a historical event that will never be known correctly since the actual facts couldn't be taken out of those involved while they lived. This treatment needed to mix the facts with previous opinions AND keep to a page limit. THAT DOES NOT EFFECT THE RATING.
The artist did not come close to drawing unique enough characters BUT he had his own intrinsic difficulty of them all being white men around the same age that dressed pretty much the same. He still could have done much better so he takes solid blame.
A Dramitis Personae would have tremendously helped distinguish the characters and would have also addressed the following problem with this ambitious (The effort is what really counts to me and what gives it ***) project.
The unforgivable flaw was how often the scenes drastically changed without enough clarity about where we were and why we were there which also made the questions of "who?" amplify.
*Why wasn't there ANY of the three "Month-Day-Year" at the start of the scenes when they were known?
I went back through the entire book and NOT ONCE DID EVEN A YEAR APPEAR- there was even a known gravestone intentionally blurred out! HISTORICAL EVENTS WITHOUT DATES ARE CRIMINAL!!
Even in the Footnotes you only get a few which aren't even the important ones! He says that one part of the story was in 1933 BUT it was clearly to brag that he researched what the big hit was playing then on the radio! He also reveals when people would die years later- even when one would get arrested BUT LEAVES OUT EVERY YEAR-MONTH-DAY YOU WILL ACTUALLY WANT!
July 22, 2017
The ugly original sin of the FBI. All this is epilogue to an epic capture in Hot Springs that deserves it's own book.
June 1, 2024
Interesting read about the massacre at Kansas City's Union Station. Makes me want to research more about what happened.
August 5, 2009
To REALLY give the impact of character and story that I think Parks wanted, this book would have needed to be like twice as long. BUT-- that's not to say it wasn't good-- cause it certainly wasn't garbage, but I didn't have a chance to really get invested in, or learn enough about the characters. I didn't really know who I should follow or care about, til it was over, but even then it still felt empty. I feel bad, cause you can tell from the extras in the book that Parks has a huge passion for this story and everything, but eh... I'm gonna read it again later, and maybe I'll think differently.
June 26, 2011
The idea of taking a real event in Kansas City in the time of the mobsters and depicting it through a graphic novel attracted me. However the general readability and coherence of the novel faltered. It was not easy to get through or to understand what all was going on during the action sequences. A lot of stuff going on the main characters life that develops nicely but just couldn't execute it all together.
May 11, 2013
A cool story, told well, but hard to follow. The story is terse, driven by art more than words, and the art is rich in noiresque chiaroscuro. The problem lies mostly in the compressed timeframes - 100 pages that flow as quickly as manga leaves you unfulfilled - and the difficulty in telling individuals apart, which made the story far more confusing than it had to be. The exhaustive footnotes in the back prove that the book could have been so much more with a little extra breathing room.
March 30, 2007
This was my second graphic novel.. what a way to digest history. Thoughful and wrought with history and emotion. Wonderful portrayal of corruption and organized crime, Kansas City Style.
September 11, 2012
A neat historical graphic novel about the early years of the FBI...
June 22, 2013
Fair historical graphic novel ... I didn't even know this event existed. The best part is that Parks catalyzed me into doing some research ... maybe that was the whole point.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews