Preview: Silverfish
By David Lapham
Vertigo, 2007. $24.99
Many thanks to the folks at Vertigo for the early look at David Lapham’s original graphic novel Silverfish, which comes out this month. A quick note to preface the preview — for a long time, I’ve dealt with Sierra Hahn on DC’s PR staff. She mostly handled Vertigo. She was always extremely helpful and awesome to work with. So I was a bit sad to hear she’d left the position not long ago. But, the good news is that she’s out of PR to work on comics herself. Expect more news on her efforts in the future.
The Plot: Seeing as this is Lapham (the guy who turned Detective Comics into a hellish nightmare with “City of Crime”), it’s no surprise that Silverfish is hardcore noir. Mia, a 16-year-old, invites some friends over to party when her dad and hated stepmom take off for a weekend. The teens start digging through the stepmom’s things, find some mysterious old notes and phone numbers. They start to call the numbers. One of them, for a man named Daniel, starts all the characters down a rapid-fire path toward violence. Meanwhile, the strange and disturbing truth between the stepmom and psychotic Daniel slowly trickles out. Then the book shifts gears, ratcheting up to a full-fledged sprint for the final page.
The Positives: I’ve long admired Lapham’s writing, but I had no idea he drew at all. Turns out, he’s really good. His characters are all realistic and expressive, but his biggest success is in designing the pages with black backgrounds. It feels like watching a classic black-and-white noir film. As a writer he succeeds once again (call me that rare guy who enjoyed City of Crime). The dialogue is like that of a dialed down slasher flick — exciting yet believable. The plot is well crafted and tight. The pacing, though, is his greatest success. The book’s final scene takes place at a roller coaster track, which is fitting because that’s the way the book reads: lots of buildup, a few small thrills, then the so-fast-you-can’t-even-breathe conclusion. It’s interesting to note that he uses no chapter breaks throughout. It is one continuous 160-page story. The main effect that has is to make it even harder to put down.
The Negatives: The only bone of contention I have with Silverfish lies in the treatment of its antagonist, Daniel. Lapham hints at a terribly interesting psychosis behind Daniel’s obsession with violence. Daniel believes tiny fish with razor-sharp teeth live inside his head and force him into his actions. He and Mia’s stepmom have an intricate backstory, but that side of it is only revealed from the stepmom’s perspective. Daniel’s perspective, and the cause behind his insanity, are never explained. That might have served as too much distraction from the main plot, but with no understanding of his desires, Daniel devolves into the simplistic monster of horror movies — a horrible creature with no thought, save for destruction.
The Grade: A- When it comes down to it, Silverfish isn’t really crime noir, or horror, or thriller, but more of an amalgamation of those genres. It’s a story well served by the comics medium — too short to be a feature film and too visually interesting for a short story. It doesn’t bring any great revelations about human existence or make commentaries on culture and society. It is just a story, but a damned good one.