Hard Looks: Adapted Stories

Hard Looks #1-5

by Andrew Vachss, Joe R. Lansdale (Adapter), Gary Gianni (Illustrator)

Andrew Vachss' writing has been described as "red-hot and serious as a punctured lung" (Playboy), "hypnotically violent ... made up of equal part broken concrete block and razor wire" (Chicago Sun-Times), and "short and choppy, like the ticking of a time bomb" (Seattle Post-Intelligencer). This brand new book contains fifteen of Vachss' most compelling, life-at-ground-zero stories, brought to life by an outstanding line-up of comics' most talented writers and artists. This exciting book also contains Half-Breed, a never-before-published story by Vachss, with illustrations and a new cover by Geof Darrow, conceptual designer for the motion pictures The Matrix I, The Matrix Reloaded, and The Matrix Revolutions.

Genres: Comics, Crime, Graphic Novels, Short Stories, Graphic Novels Comics, Noir

208 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

Andrew Vachss has been a federal investigator in sexually transmitted diseases, a social-services caseworker, a labor organizer, and has directed a maximum-security prison for “aggressive-violent” youth. Now a lawyer in private practice, he represents children and youths exclusively. He is the author of numerous novels, including the Burke series, two collections of short stories, and a wide variety of other material including song lyrics, graphic novels, essays, and a “children’s book for adults.” His books have been translated into twenty languages, and his work has appeared in Parade, Antaeus, Esquire, Playboy, the New York Times, and many other forums. A native New Yorker, he now divides his time between the city of his birth and the Pacific Northwest.

The dedicated Web site for Vachss and his work is
www.vachss.com. That site and this page are managed by volunteers. To contact Mr. Vachss directly, use the "email us" function of vachss.com.

Reviews

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection is pretty similar to the comic adaptation of Bukowski's "Death in the city" and Joe Pruett's "Kilroy was here". It's as hard as it gets, circling around pedophilia, child abuse, juvenile violence and the psychological links between them.

Surely some artists of this crime fiction anthology aren't to my taste, as expected. But i wanted to read Vachss for years now and that was a perfect introduction, firm and fierce as a racing fist on your jaw.

[Jacob · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gritty and difficult to read, not because it's poorly done, but because it is true in the lives of so many, and it's a call for all of us to find some way to protect the defenseless.

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gritty as hell.

[Cameron Johnson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not bad. I appreciate what is implied. That justice may not always come, and when it does it does so by less than honorable means sometimes. Life is not beautiful because people are not beautiful. Some of the art is good. I really like "Halfbreed" for the message. If the rest had been like it, there would have been four stars.

[Du4 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Here are some really cool graphic adaptations of Vachss' short stories. Of note is one story introducing Cross, a Burke-like character that Vachss once eyed for a comic book series. Very cool shit.

[Terry Mulcahy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gritty: that's for sure. Disturbing, sure. Vachss takes all kinds of real day-to-day horror, like child abuse, incest and rape, and treats it with righteous anger and usually violent payback. The blurbs say he looks into the minds of the worst members of society. In a sense, he does, but it's a broad paintbrush he uses to paint a stereotypical type of villian. This is not too different from a Superman comic, or the old DC comics in that sense. While those dealt in pure fantasy, these stories are based on reality, the real crimes, reported and unreported that occur every day between people. But, like superhero comics, the villians are one-dimensional, bad all the way through, and deserving of punishment for their crimes, violent punishment, eye-for-an-eye type of retribution. There are just a few types of people in these stories: monsters (created, or encouraged by society), victims, the "good" but naiive & powerless citizens, and the avengers, who are anything but angels themselves.
Reading these, you want to cheer for justice done, but life is rarely that clearcut. Sure, the police departments fight a losing battle against violent crime, but vigilantes aren't omnipitant, they usually don't have the all-seeing eye of the movie watcher or book reader, and take action based on rumor and insufficient facts.
So, while the endings of these little stories are satisfying, there is a disturbing sense that this is how society breaks down, little by little. If that is Vachss' point - well, OK. If not, then, well, I know the world's a tough place, but I don't believe in good and evil as intrinsic qualities by themselves, so this kind of justice is not much of a solution, just feel-good-about yourself-without-actually doing-anything-about-it stories that serve only a sense of righteousness. But there's fun in that.

[Sean · Rating 3 out of 5]

Maybe 3.5

[Wm]

Tales of abusive men made so by abuses. I might be too old to read such stark unrepentant cruelty that isn't (to some extent) muted by one cartoonish element or another.

[Fraser Burnett · Rating 2 out of 5]

There's one really good one, see if you can guess, a couple of all right ones, and the rest...meh. He's no Lansdale.

[Clay · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't know much about this horrible topic except for the occasionsal episode of Law & Order because it disgusts me so much. I don't want to hear about it and don't want to think about it. I only knew that Vachss writes very dark books and that he also portrays very twisted and evil characters but when I found this graphic novel in my library I didn't expect that nearly all stories would deal with child abuse. The villains were disgusting and the stories suggest that the only way to deal with them is to kill them. None of the stories were politically correct but that's a whole other topic. It was horrifying and I was glad when I finished but nevertheless some of the brutal revenge scenes were very well done and the artwork was mostly brilliant. Often you could tell that this is not l'art pour l'art. There is a clear intention to lecture and bring across certain standpoints. From the narrative point hat's not always helpful even though there's no denying that the intentions were good.

[John Grazide · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a fan of Vachss' writing, it was interesting to see the stories come to life. Having read almost all of his work I can see some similarities. That should be obvious, but some authors have no "Voice" and their stories reflect that. As people who have read Vachss know, his stories are not for the faint of heart. But they do reflect the worst that society has to offer. While others dance around political correctness and ambiguity Vachss doesn't do any of that. And although the topics are dark they are real.

[Mark Robison · Rating 2 out of 5]

Series of short stories told in comic book form, with a few just text. All are of the “monkey’s paw” variety where arrogant and/or foolish males (usually sex offenders) think they’ve figured out a great score only to have things turn out horribly wrong. Like the stories, the artwork is straight-forward and predictable with little originality but a brutishness that some might like. Bechdel test: fail.

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gobbled this one up. Need to find the story collection these are based on, if there is one. Seriously good stuff. Was surprised and happy to find Charles de Lint getting mean with the adaption for 'Born Bad', too.

[Bryson Kopf · Rating 4 out of 5]

Horrible people doing terrible things to even more horrific people. Vachss pull no punches in this short story collection with adaptations by some great artists. Great stuff by Gary Gianni, Geof Darrow, Dave Gibbons and David Lloyd. Not for the faint of heart!

[Jeremy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some good, some not so good. I particularly liked the prose story "Step on a Crack". Lots of revenge fantasies in here, but it was the kind of stuff which would only satisfy the actual victims. I was very surprised by how much the writing reminded me of Frank Miller, particularly not-so-great FM.

[Grant · Rating 4 out of 5]

Was a formative introduction to rape culture.