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brutally Kamphausened
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I read this one online last night, and thought it was pretty darned good:

 Quote:
SUMMARY:

When unassuming candy store owner Ike Hopper dies of a heart attack, he leaves behind a bombshell that rocks his small Australian town. His confession of guilt to a 27-year old murder—the savage stabbing of local girl Lee Duncan—brings his brother Greg, accused of the crime, out of the bush where he''s been hiding. But Greg, returning to his hometown of Dubbo to tie up loose ends, finds not all ghosts go quietly to the grave. For instance, he seems to see his ex-wife Lee taunting him wherever he wanders... A hard-hitting, guilt-ridden, sun-drenched slice of outback noir.


A 64-page complete one-shot story, it's a quietly great story, of a guy in Australia who returns to his small town 27 years after his wife was murdered and he was accused of it. There is remarkable compassion and sympathy for him, even from the grieving. And I love the sheriff, likeably irritable, but who projects a great deal of strength, compassion, and unspoken wisdom. Despite there was a murder, there is a great deal of love and bond between the characters. Though more recently written, it is set in the year 1969. Isolated from the rest of the world, there is something of a timelessness to the story. I also like what appears to be his dead wife talking to him, and it is done in a way that she could be imagined by him, or that her ghost is actually there with him.

In a comics field of episodic escapist genre entertainment, this is a refreshing story that is more about the interaction between people, and unresolved emotions of the long absent main character with his family and friends, and is a story that is told completely.

While it's set in Australia, it was apparently published in France by French creators, and then translated into English. So it's about Australians, it portrays people and social culture in a small Australian town, but it's not an Australian comic.

I hope Australia-Dave is still lurking here and enjoys it. And even if it portrays Australian life accurately to some degree, there is probably as much regional variation in Australian culture as there is in American culture. Life in New South Wales vs. Perth or Melbourne or Queensland or Sydney, is probably as varied as life in New York City is from that in Atlanta or L.A. or Topeka or West Palm Beach.

Here's the full 64-page story to read online:

https://comiconlinefree.com/comic/a-hell-of-an-innocent




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Banned from the DCMBs since 2002.
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huh! How unusual. Thanks! I'll take a look at this.

Australia is not anywhere near as varied in respect of regional cultures like the US. We have the big urban cities (Sydney is 5.2m, Perth where I am is 2m), smallish rural towns, mining settlements (which can get pretty big), and the outback. There's no real cultural difference between the big cities. Boston and New York are more different than Sydney and Melbourne.


Pimping my site, again.

http://www.worldcomicbookreview.com

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brutally Kamphausened
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Maybe that's because Australia was settled in a time of air travel, over the last 120 years or so. Whereas the U.S. developed in a time where travel across long distances was more difficult, and therefore developed more isolated regional cultures and accents.

I understand that most of Australia's population is concentrated in a few major cities, as you describe above. It's kind of wild that Australia is about the land area of the lower 48 United States (excluding Alaska and Hawaii), but has a population only slightly larger than that of just Florida.

I replaced the first link above for the HELL OF AN INNOCENT story, the 12comic.com site seems to be down permanently. So I replaced it with the comiconlinefree.com link, which also seems to be temporarily down. \:\(

Hopefully it will be back for your reading pleasure soon.



In the meantime, I discovered this other 300-page black-and-white graphic novel, A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE.
https://comiconlinefree.com/a-history-of-violence/issue-Full/12

I'm unfamiliar with any other work by the writer. The art is by Vince Locke, who I only recognize from some issues he did of Neil Gaiman's SANDMAN series. Very brisk reading, very cinematic, and a rather dark story, but with very likeable and human characters.

In some ways it reminds me of the movie Goodfellas.



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brutally Kamphausened
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I found another site with A HELL OF AN INNOCENT online to read.

https://readcomiconline.to/Comic/A-Hell-of-An-Innocent



The 12comic.com site where I first read this book and linked it apparently is down and no longer exists.

The second comiconlinefree.com site used to have it, but is apparently not funcioning and only displays a few pages.

But the https://readcomiconline.to/Search/Comic finally gives a place where you can read it again. I figured it's a small-press book with limited readership, and wanted to find a physical copy to buy to support it, but only found an Amazon Kindle version. So this is your best option to appreciate it. The book, 64 pages, was only published in 2018.



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brutally Kamphausened
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The comiconlinefree site was down for a while, but after some repair, is back online again.
The new link:

https://comiconlinefree.net/comic/a-hell-of-an-innocent



and the same story at :

https://viewcomiconline.com/a-hell-of-an-innocent-tpb/


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