“New York’s Darkest Secrets Unveiled in ‘Newburn 1: They Know Who I Am'”

new york black

Newburn. An ex-cop, “he never talks about it, but he speaks their language”. It is said that this high-level investigator would have one day had an enlightenment: “we are all bad by nature, so why not make more money? He resigned, set up on his own. He knows everyone, from those who represent the law (police or politicians, many of whom are corrupt) to those who circumvent it (the crime families, in a perpetual war of influence). A world of trafficking, dirty tricks, revenge, not knowing where it all started, in short, we wade through horror.

Newburn navigates these murky waters, serving as a liaison between the gangs to 1. hope for less death 2. his own gain. His life hangs by a thread: the secrets he holds. He seems lonely, but, thanks to a drug affair, he is joined by the presence at his side of Emily (is that only her real name? What is her past?), who will bring “a little ‘human’ when his boss’s ‘walking ice cube act’ doesn’t work.

set of mirrors

This first volume of the adventures of Newburn, the private man who knew how to make himself indispensable, is a jewel of feverishness and cunning of all kinds, from billiards to (at least) three cushions with two exits: the morgue or the next blow-out . In a hyper-realistic painting of a New York blacker than life, which one would say fantasized to make the adventure even more breathless and scabrous, we shiver with this labyrinthine scenario, a fascinating game of mirrors, sumptuously brought to life by Jacob Phillips, prince of contemporary comics. In Emily’s words, it is “like tightrope walking on a dragon’s tongue. »

READ “Newburn 1. They know who I am”, Zdarsky & Phillips, ed. Urban Comics, 168 pages, €10.