Customer Reviews

Torso

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

"Torso" is a great comic. Not being a huge fan of crime-fiction myself, I gave it a try based on Bendis's excellent work on the comic series "Powers." Also, I liked the idea of a real-life "super-hero" in Eliot Ness pitched against a real-life "super-villain" in the form of the Torso serial killer.

Like Alan Moore's "From Hell," Bendis took a real, unresolved case and weaved a drama around facts. His story-telling is realistic and gritty, and does not contain Moore's flights of fancy. I would have liked to have seen an appendix, separating the drama from the known facts, and why Bendis choose his particular culprit.

The art is not a strong initial attractor, but after reading a few pages it starts to flow. The mix of photos and drawings is effective.

This is really strong stuff, and I recommend it to comic fans and crime-fiction fans alike.

I'm not usually that interested in serial killers, be they real or fictional, but I'll check out almost any graphic novel, and so I picked this up from the library recently. The book is a fictional recasting of the grisly "Torso Killer" murders that took place in Cleveland roughly between 1935-39. One aspect that makes it a touch more interesting is the involvement of Elliot Ness, fresh from his legendary "Untouchables"-leading, Capone-busting successes in Chicago. After the end of Prohibition, Ness left the G-men and was hired in 1935 by the city of Cleveland as Director of Public Safety. This coincided almost exactly with the emergence of a gruesome serial killer who decapitated and often dismembered his victims, leaving most of the remains in or near Lake Erie Sound. (Note: Contrary to what some reviewers have written, this was hardly the first serial killer in America. The first reliably documented serial killer operated in the 1890s in Chicago and was the subject of a very entertaining recent book, Devil in the White Castle.)

The story documents the initial investigation by a pair of tough-talking police detectives while Ness is busy purging the police department of corrupt cops. However, as the corpses start mounting up, the mayor forces Ness to take charge of the Torso case. The bulk of the book is then a pretty straightforward police procedural, as Ness and the lead detectives pursue various angles. The most notable of these is Ness' controversial decision to clear out a large shantytown of unemployed people and burn it to the ground in order to deny the killer an easy target population. The investigation is handled pretty well, with good pacing and great dialogue peppered with plenty of period slang. Personal lives are woven in, somewhat less successfully, as Ness' marriage crumbles and one of the detectives reveals a shocking secret. These subplots feel kind of tacked on and underwritten. The climax falters a little bit as well, as the writers deviate slightly from reality in order to create an action-packed finale which never happened. However, the real suspect (Dr. Francis E. Sweeney) was interrogated by Ness, and was protected by political family, and did more or less elude justice as the book depicts.

The artwork is pretty interesting, incorporating period photographs and documents into the bold black and white artwork. Some of the layouts and paneling are quite creatively done (especially the interrogation sequence), although one section which requires turning the book sideways for several spreads is really awkward and annoying. A section at the end provides additional original photos and documents relating to the case, which are interesting, but need more context. The book really needs a few pages where it is explained what is real and what the writer invented or rearranged (for example, in real life, the postcards taunting Ness weren't sent until after the killings stopped), and what happened to Ness and the suspect and detectives over the rest of their lives. Since this series came out, a large number of original police files were discovered following the death of one of the lead detectives and several other works have appeared, including two books (In the Wake of the Butcher: Cleveland's Torso Murders and Torso: Eliot Ness and the Search for a Psychopathic Killer) and a documentary (The Fourteenth Victim - Eliot Ness and the Torso Murder). Overall, well worth checking out.

I've read a few Bendis titles in the past and have been just okay with them. I ran across this one at the library and decided to give it a try. Absolutely stunning. This guy shouldn't waste his time with hero comics because when he's just okay with them. While getting his hands around historical crime, he just explodes into someone like a Caleb could only hope to be. This was on level with "From Hell" in the graphic world and Elroy's "Black Dahlia" in non-graphic, but lacking some of their depth. Well researched and well presented. It's a story I had never heard of and will definitely read more about in the future.

The presentation, which is something I rarely comment on in a graphic book, was unbelelievable. I loved the mixture of drawing with old photography. I was impressed with the authentic dialogue based on periodic idiomatic expressions. And the wording, I just came away so impressed with it. The way it was connected to visually cue your eyes to the graphics. And how it was always easy to follow the structure due to this, even though it was anything but the linear paneling we are used to with comics. One moment that is just spectacular is an interrogation of a potential suspect by Eliot Ness and how the format swirls around two pages leading into a metaphorical abyss. And you'll have to read a little more to understand that abyss comment.

Loved the ending! Loved the ending! Loved the ending! It may not meet the expectations of those that demand conclusion, but there was something so fundamental about the nature of power there that I just loved it.

Top 5 all time Graphic Novel. And who can ever compete with Sandman, so let's be real and say Top 4;)

This book is an amazing display of Brian Michael Bendis story telling ability. He guides us through the world of Elliot Ness as he searches for the world's first serial killer. What amazes me most is his relentless re-telling of a real life story from begining to end the true events are dramatizes in an extrordinary way. Great, scary, facinating ride through the city of Cleveland in the 1930's ... but this is not a kids book!

This collection contains the complete Torso story, one of the earlier works of now well-known comic-book author Bendis. A story about the hunt for a serial killer whose trademark it was to leave his victims behind with their head, hands and feet cut of, based on real events.

Eliot Ness, the man who has recently helped put Al Capone behind bars, has only just been installed as Clevelands new `safety-director' when two corpses are discovered in a local field. Both corpses are heavily cut up, only the torsos are left behind. This comes as an extra job in Ness' agenda in which he had already decided to clean up this, for now, corrupt city. When more and more corpses quickly turn up though, it becomes priority. From there on it becomes an interesting story, working towards a not-so-average conclusion.

The link to Alan Moore's `From Hell' is easily made, but apart from the same basic idea (report of a serial-murderers past spree) the two books are very different. Where `From Hell' is all about information, backgrounds and completeness this book focuses purely on the chase, the point of view of the investigators (Bendis gift for dialogue is important in this). Therefore it should be approached purely as a tale, not as a source of information on the events. And despite of the big amount of pages it's very fast-paced, not a long-read. The black-and-white art is pretty simple and shouldn't be the reason to buy this book. Simple cartoony (maybe TOO cartoony for this type of story) characters with backgrounds that are sometimes almost non-existent and sometimes pictures from the real scenes, crowds and locations of the particular murder-spree. All in all not Bendis best-scripted book but certainly enjoyable and worth the read, despite of the high cover-price.

Although this book is relatively thick, I finished it in two hours. Why? Because it is the kind of book where it grips you, with it's great dialogue, its interesting frames, and the great mystery unfolding. I was quite impressed. I originally picked it up off the shelf because of it's interesting cover, but from reading the back I made up my mind and had to take this one home. It won't last you very long, because even someone who doesn't read graphic novels will be hooked on this.

I'm paying more and more attention to BMB lately, and I like what I see. This was initially due to the release of the Powers trade collection, and now we get Torso, one of Bendis' earlier works, and just as good.

This is a great dramatized account of a real event. Elliot Ness, fresh off of the Al Capone/Untouchables episode, has relocated to Cleveland, Ohio and becomes involved in the first serial killer case in the US. Bendis uses some great narrative and visual effects in this story, including skewed page layouts and story panels that shuffle hither and yon. Large panels and fadeouts between chapters give it a very cinematic feel. The black and white artwork is very simple and straightforward, incorporating photographs for scenery at times. Bendis also has a knack for writing extremely realistic dialogue. In fact, I can say that the dialogue is realistic almost to a fault. Put it this way: have you ever read a court transcript, with all the "ers", "ahs", and repeated words, and wondered "geez, do people actually talk like that? How does anything get said?" Sure enough, that's what Bendis uses here, and while it does give the story a more realistic feel, it can get a bit tedious at times. Don't get me wrong, though: the story flows very well, getting 2 thumbs up for pacing. The ending may or may not be a letdown, depending on how much you expect from this, but overall, it's an enjoyable read.

One thing that could have helped this book out, purely from the historical perspective, is more info on the case in the appendix. I'd like to have a better handle on who's who and what's what. But as it is, you get some brief writeups and crime photos, pretty interesting in their own right.

'Torso', a well-researched account of the investigation into the grisly crimes of one of America's first recorded serial killers, is an incredible read. Gritty and surreal, the art of Brian Bendis pushes the boundaries of the comic-book format, with lush, murky panels that swirl back and forth before the reader's eyes, imparting a dream-like motif to the story. Subtle use of actual photography and newsprint from the era remind you of the authenticity of the tale and serve to reinforce the feeling of having stepped into another time. Although this approach makes the sequence of panels and dialogue difficult to follow at times, the style adds weight to the material, and the plot unfolds much like a well-directed movie. This work is well deserving of the accolades it has received by both readers and critics alike (winning the prestigious Eisner award in 1999) and stands as a milestone achievement of the medium. However, the presentation of this marvelous comic is undeservedly marred by what is undoubtedly the worst binding I have ever seen in a trade paperback, or any paperback for that matter. I ordered this book brand new, and it literally fell apart in my hands as I read it, the pages pulling free of the glue lining the spine of the book. By the time I finished reading, I had an empty cover with the pages all fallen out. I have also seen new copies of 'Torso' at bookstores and I can assure you that this defect is not limited to my copy. This is unacceptable for such a towering work of this nature, and it puzzles me that Image comics would allow this. So until a better TPB is offered, or better yet, a hardcover version, I urge those who love comics to read it, but do not expect a collectible copy.

despite being very well paced, stylishly presented and interestingly plotted, "torso" suffers from a disapointing conclusion. the book should have been about 1/3 longer to fully develope the characters and themes presented, especially simon's revelation near the end. ness's relationship with his wife didnt come into play as much, nor was it as important as it was meant to be. i really wanted all the the personal attributes of the charaters to be more definately linked to the story and to be more fully developed. i would have been fine with it being simply a "cops and robbers" story, since up to a point, it works fantastically in that regard. but the climax is over before i had time really get excited, souring the story's thriller aspect. i really liked the drawing style combined with the old photos. they both helped to give the story a surreal feel, which complimented the over-the-top nature of the plot itself. but at the end it almost felt as though the authors got sick of writing it making for a very disapointing outcome. **1/2

Brian Michael Bendis and Marc Andreyko, Torso (Image Entertainment, 1997)

Sometimes it seems like every city wants to claim a serial killer. Look at the number of municipalities who seem almost proud that Jeffrey Dahmer spent a portion of his upbringing in them; Akron, Ohio, just down the road from me, is one of them. A little closer to home and a little farther away in time, though, Cleveland was the home (and may still be...) of one of the most notorious serial killers active in the first half of the twentieth century: the Torso killer.

Bendis and Andreyko brought the Torso Killer, and Elliott Ness' hunt for him, to stark, ugly life in the series of comic books that has since been collected in this graphic novel. All those faults I found in Doran's A Distant Soil are absent here; Bendis and Andreyko know exactly what they're doing with keeping the reader up to speed with what's going on with each character, know exactly how much they can fit into any given page without overwhelming the reader's sensibilities, and did meticulous research on the case (living in Cleveland, it's kind of hard to get away from the details; the Torso Killer is one of our local public television station's favorite subjects). Only a piece of the ending has been shifted from the way the actual case went, presumably for dramatic effect.

But the book does not just stop at the Torso Killer, delving into the private lives of some of the folks who worked on the case, as well. The result is a cast of well-drawn characters, a good (and faithful, for the most part, to the truth) story, intriguing artwork, a fine script, and a bang-up mystery. How can you possibly go wrong? *** ½