The Private Eye by Brian K Vaughan, Marcos Martín, & Munsta Vicente

Blurb:

From the creator of the New York Times bestselling series SAGA, comes the three-time, Eisner nominated, PanelSyndicate.com's digital comics sensation THE PRIVATE EYE! Finally, this book is coming to print in a beautiful deluxe hardcover edition!

Set in an inevitable future of where everyone has a secret identity, THE PRIVATE EYE is an eerily prescient sci-fi mystery about an unlicensed private investigator who stumbles onto the most important case of his life.

The series is set in 2076, a time after "the cloud has burst", revealing everyone's secrets. As a result, there is no more Internet, and people are excessively guarded about their identity, to the point of appearing only masked in public.

Review:

I discovered Brian K Vaughan earlier this year with Spectators, which I absolutely loved. So naturally, when I saw this strange cover with all artwork in a horizontal format, I was intrigued. What I didn’t know was that I was in for an absolute wild ride. The Private Eye is an action-packed mystery-thriller set in a far dystopian future where the Internet doesn’t exist after the ‘cloud burst’. Great setting, but an even more exciting plot and story… 

What I Liked:

Imagine a world where the Internet doesn’t exist. No cameras, no surveillance, no publicly available information about anyone as an extreme exercise of your Right to Privacy. That’s the dystopian future that Brian K Vaughan has imagined, realized beautifully by illustrator Marcos Martín & colorist Munsta Vicente. It’s not just that the setting is unique, it’s absurdly colorful with a bleak underbelly of human baseness. 

The colorful artwork brings this world alive, making it feel as real as any of your dreams, or nightmares. What’s more? The Private Eye was independently published on the writer’s and illustrator’s own website, Panel Syndicate. So, to adapt to monitors, they decided to make The Private Eye a completely horizontal book. And the way every frame is composed—especially the full-page illustrations—make smart use of the horizontal format. You can take hours perusing each frame, and you’ll find something to admire. Every cityscape hides within it several nods to brands and pop culture icons. This really feels like our real world, albeit with an absurdist twist.  

But the artwork is just the tip of the iceberg.

The story itself is a straightforward murder mystery. But the philosophical meat sandwiched between the fast-paced mystery and the absurd dystopia is what stood out to me the most. Our protagonist is P.I., an unlicensed Journalist operating as a Private Investigator. This is a world free of cops, with the Fourth Estate taking over their responsibilities. Just take a moment to ponder over that idea. Journalists—the one profession that is supposed to search for, document, and present the truth—are now the pinnacle of law and order. And the story does justice in using this strange twist to tell a story that’s all about privacy, and a post-Internet world. 

Apart from the designs, the characters didn’t really stand out to me. What stood out, though, was what they all represented in the philosophical matrix of this graphic novel. P.I. is an unregistered journalist, a rogue, a rebel who’s gone the extra mile to maintain his privacy. His grandfather is a millennial/Gen-Z who keeps referring to the ‘good old days’ with nods to contemporary paraphernalia. And then there is the villain, DeGuerre, who is such a stereotypical villain with a comically simplistic plot to reinstate the Internet, it’s beautiful. After all, in an absurd world, you need an equally absurd act of terrorism for it to make sense. 

The story plays out like any other murder mystery, the investigation slowly but surely shedding light onto the lives of people involved, as well as the world they inhabit. And the profound questions these reveals pose are worth pondering over, especially given the state of everything across the world. I’m not going to spoil anything, because it’s best to discover this story without any prior knowledge. 

I really enjoyed reading The Private Eye. I couldn’t take my eyes off the stunning illustrations, nor did I feel like letting go of the fast-paced story that had me hooked for every single frame. I read this in two sittings, but the way it made me feel, and the way it made me think… this one is going to stay with me for a long time. 

What I Didn’t Like:

SPOILERS AHEAD!

For all its praises, there were many times throughout the story where I felt like plot convenience saved the day. Some characters acted a little too stupidly, which didn’t make sense. For example, the French goons are hired by DeGuerre to do his dirty work. Given how much of a bigshot DeGuerre is, and how important his plan to restore the internet is, it felt very odd for the French Twins to be making certain mistakes like not checking if their target was down, being able to easily take a patient out of their ward and escaping the hospital despite engaging in a shootout, etc. There are some logical reasons behind some of those, but for the most part it did feel like plot convenience.

In addition to that, the ending—for all its epic finale and near-world-changing impact—felt incomplete. The story kind of ended abruptly, and I was left with many unanswered questions. What happens with the world now? Did P.I. really die? A few extra pages establishing more of the effect of the finale would’ve made for a more satisfying ending. And honestly, the ending right now is already good. In my opinion, it would have been better if we got those answers. But, that is subjective, I guess.

In Conclusion:

Absurdly profound, Brian K Vaughan's dystopian sci-fi mystery thriller beautifully uses the horizontal image to tell a captivating story with relevant themes.

TL;DR:

What I liked: Setting & world-building, thought-provoking narrative, mystery, plot

What I didn’t like: Some plot convenience, ending felt like there should be more.