Review by Ian Keogh
November’s back cover categorises the series as crime and mystery, which can be worked out from events depicted in this first volume, but due to Matt Fraction’s ambitiously experimental storytelling little else can.
The Girl on the Roof opens with Dee, a compulsive early riser and crossword addict, lonely and embittered, in pain from a damaged hip and given the opportunity to be paid ridiculous money for performing a simple pointless task every day. She spends it in strip clubs and peepshow booths, inevitably getting so drunk and obnoxious she’s thrown out. Elsa Charretier draws visual connections between homing pigeons and the girls working in those clubs, and everything is elusive and beyond understanding. So is what happens to the woman who calls in a gun found in a puddle. Reading the story of police call handler Kowalski may join some dots, but on the other hand it reveals a city on a single night in total chaos. Chaos is the last thing needed in the police department handling bagged evidence, where everything needs to be orderly.
The level of frustration engendered by following November before all four volumes became available must have been immense. There’s no easy way into a set of inexplicable circumstances provided in The Girl on the Roof, so the choice you have is whether your appreciation of Matt Fraction’s other writing provides the faith to stick around for four volumes.
To be fair to him, the events related are so out there, they pose enough questions readers are going to want answered. With intrigue set high, Charretier’s gorgeous, character rich art in small, detailed panels provides another sugar coated pill, coloured by Matt Hollingsworth in attractive, muted, largely earth tones. Adding to the artistic triumph is letterer Kurt Ankeny, who uses a different script for each of the main characters’ narration captions.
Completing the sense of mystery and drama created throughout, two of the three following volumes are named after chapter titles here, with The Gun in the Puddle next. When everything comes together after four volumes a brilliantly constructed puzzle is revealed, but in isolation here style triumphs over content. What the hell’s going on?
