POBB July 16, 2024

Pick of the Brown Bag

July 16, 2024

by

Ray Tate

Welcome to the Pick of the Brown Bag, a comic book review blog hosted and originated by yours truly Ray Tate.  This week I critique a new independent, creator-owned title that's actually a continuation of an old independent, creator-owned title.

The brainchild of Batman writer Mike W. Barr in the late eighties, Maze Agency was a hot-selling, fair-play mystery series.  By fair-play I mean that if you follow the clues, you can solve the mystery before detectives Jennifer Mays and Gabriel Webb.

Jennifer Mays is an ex-CIA agent who began The Maze Agency, the title of her private investigation firm not just the comic book.  

Her lover Gabriel Webb is a writer/sleuth with a keen mind that often solves the crime.

Maze Agency floated from defunct comic book publishers Comico and Innovation.  The series had an impressive run, especially for a book not about superheroes.  Mays and Webb even teamed up with one of the greatest detectives in literature Ellery Queen; whom Barr counts as one of his inspirations for the series.  

Maze Agency further benefitted by nobody, but decent enough, artists, such as some guy named Adam Hughes.  Hughes replaced the even more obscure artist Alan Davis, who I don't know had more important things to do like work in a car wash, or something.  Who knows what became of these guys?

Barr never gave up on Maze Agency.  It's his baby, and he resuscitated the series and the characters several times after Comico and Innovation went out of the business.  Most recently, Mays and Webb appeared in the Moonstone prose anthology Sex, Lies and Private Eyes: ISBN-13: 9781933076454; ISBN-10: 1933076453.

I must admit to being surprised by Maze Agency's return to the comic book racks and I hope the book is here to stay.  

Barr this time around teams up with Scout Comics and artist Silvano Beltramo.  

Beltramo is an excellent illustrator.  He succeeds in not only resuscitating the cast, based on the original designs, but also renders the important clues highlighted by Barr's direction.

In this issue of Maze Agency, Mays and Webb investigate the murder of a movie revival star.  The double-entendre isn’t lost on me, and a little humor goes a long way.

Private eyes in real life rarely become involved in murder investigations, but it's a tradition in fiction and Barr sells it fine.  

The filmmakers hired the Maze Agency to provide security for their press conference.  Plausibility for Jen and Gabe’s involvement also comes from Lieutenant Bobbi Bliss.

Bliss appeared in the whole of the former series and it's great to see her back.  

Each issue of Maze Agency has a beginning--the murder--a middle--the investigation--and an end--the solution.  This superb return to form is no different.

While Maze Agency is more cerebral than visceral.  Things do get rather bloody.

Not to mention suspenseful.

Highly recommended.