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Sneak Preview and Review: Good Cop, Bad Cop: Casebook 3 by Jim Alexander and Aaron Murphy

By Antony Esmond on January 4, 2016

Written by Jim Alexander
Art by Aaron Murphy
Art Assist by Chris Twydell
Production and Lettering by Jim Campbell
Edited by Ed Murphy
Cover art by Luke Cooper
Publisher: Planet Jimbot

The Story: A balaclava clad man with a bit of a nasty cough is shown into the back room of an army surplus store and starts shopping for all manner of automatic firearms. Our ‘Good Cop/Bad Cop’ is Detective Inspector Brian Fisher, his partner is DS Julie Spencer. They have a strange and strained personal and working relationship that is yet (I suspect) to play out fully.

Elsewhere in the city two uniformed cops get a call to a Glasgow flat. They discover a woman tied up and as a grenade drops the world suddenly goes to hell. How will Fisher investigate this one…..

The Review: This is the third story in the series and I’ve been enjoying them all. It’s a brutal, home-grown Scottish crime series. Full of earthy Glaswegian pragmatism and humour, stone cold violent nutters, machine guns and hunting knives. It has a hugely adult tone, and kind of reminds me of a cross between a Scottish noir novel and a touch of Lynchian weirdness. It includes adult subject matter, nasty undertones and some cracking dialogue.

Fisher remains an interesting character and we get a particularly disturbing insight into his private life during a prison interview scene. He has a tragically haunted quality and looks a little bit like John Wagner (which is superb!) The story takes some unexpected turns and makes for an intriguing read.

Aaron Murphy is new to both the title and to me on the art chores, but handles it really well with some interesting flourishes. He seems at home in both the slower” talking head” moments as well as delivering the book’s the more violent scenes. His clean, black and white art work bleeds into the seedy side of the story with ease. It feels almost like he has left a faint hint of some blue line pencil work in the art to give it a noirish feel.

This is the first issue of a three parter mini-series getting its launch at the Geek-aboo Comic Mart, (74 High Street, Glasgow – details of this and other events can be found here) on Saturday 23rd January 2016. Jim Alexander the writer and Ed Murphy will be there to sign copies.

• You can find out more about this new book and all the other Planet Jimbot comics at www.facebook.co/groups/planetjimbot or follow them on Twitter @Planetjimbot. Alternatively, pop over to Planet Jimbots etsy shop and grab this issue after it’s launched later this month. You can get the previous series from there now, too!

Many thanks for reading.