Review by Ian Keogh

1936 is the hardcover compilation gathering all ten chapters of the Eisner Award winning period drama from Pornsak Pichetshote and Alexandre Tefenkgi. It’s cheaper spread across paperbacks Volume One and Volume Two, but with a story this good, why penny pinch?

Ostensibly the story arc is that of police detective Edison Hark, Chinese, yet raised by wealthy American businessman Mason Carroway alongside his own children. There was a massive fallout, and 1936 opens with Hark as a police detective in San Francisco, in the 1930s home to the largest Chinese population in the USA. It’s also the story of Ivy Chen, a different person to almost everyone who knows her, missing and the cause of Hark’s reunion with the Carroways. That’s enough to make for the excellent noir mystery that 1936 is, but a constant accompaniment is the racist attitude almost everyone of the era had toward the Chinese, meaning there was no justice for them.

Hark is intriguing from the start, not entirely sure where his loyalties lie, and a man in the middle, representing perhaps the only opportunity for fairness to the Chinese community, yet seen by them as a member of their oppressors. Much is made of the badge he carries. Yet equal thought is given to the personality of every featured character, and more, what formed that personality. Even in superior crime graphic novels such attention to people is rare as the plot is the primary consideration. Pichetshote really delivers with that as well, brilliantly supplying complications and twists, yet everything makes absolute sense when explained. Such is the complexity, almost all the final chapter is given over to explanations.

As other writers have discovered, you may have an incredible plot and great characters, but it’s only as good as the artist makes it look. Tefenkgi makes 1936 look phenomenal. He’s a deceptive artist, so good you might not notice his mastery of technique the first time round, but absolutely everything is in his arsenal, from great design to superlative storytelling. There’s attention to detail, credible characters, action plotted from panel to panel and so many small decorative touches.

On this site when it comes to crime graphic novels we consider Darwyn Cooke or the team of Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips the gold standard. Seems it’s time to add to that list.