Dark Goodbye: Volume 1 by Drew Rausch, Frank Marraffino, Drew Rausch (Illustrator)

Publishers Weekly

Private eye Max "Mutt" Mason is enlisted by the sultry Lavinia Tillinghast to locate her errant twin sister, a mystery woman with secrets to spare. He soon finds himself thrust into an unimaginable sequence of events that, if unchecked, will lead to the return of arcane elder gods and the end of the world. Mason's investigation is fraught with chilling family secrets, corpses—both eviscerated and resuscitated— and a full slate of other obscure happenings: kidnappings, giant carnivorous plants, women unwillingly sacrificed to the lusts of extra-dimensional horrors and the resulting half-human offspring of those unions. With its Leviathan-sized tentacled wigglies, diabolic rituals, tough guy fisticuffs, books of forbidden knowledge and even a creepy asylum, this heartfelt geekfest merrily blends the genres of crime noir and H.P. Lovecraftian horror fiction. Marraffino's homage-drenched script shamelessly piles on the clichés and in-jokes (the most groan-inducing of which is a secretary named "Miss Katonic"), while Rausch's jittery artwork achieves the perfect balance between the cartoony and the outright disturbing, resulting in an enjoyable romp. (Apr.)

John LeightonCopyright 2006 Reed Business Information. - School Library Journal

Gr 10 Up
Ghoulish and gothic, The Dark Goodbye opens with the biggest noir cliché ever: a beautiful blond woman walks into the shuttered office of a boozy P.I. Livinia wants to hire Max, the chronically soused narrator, to find her sister Mary and to keep her out of the trouble she's in. Fair enough, Max says, except that Mary's trouble involves ghouls, gigantic insects, and underwater shipwrecks hiding sharp-toothed, tentacled creatures. Max stops in any dive bar he notices; in one, he meets Dot, a pigtailed, acid-tongued young woman who takes him into the underworld of the city. The artwork is monolithically dark and angular; the various monsters are drawn in a winking, super-grotesque style. While this is an all black-and-white book with heavy horror imagery, it feels fun and light to read, perhaps because of Max's nickname "Mutt" and his insouciant manner. A niche-interest title that may or may not take off.

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