Ruminating In My Pants #7: Best Books of 2008

Okay so I have thought long and hard (ha!) about this and have finally come up with my own little categories for the best books of twenty-aught-eight. Yeah, I know: I'm fucking awesome, but I pale in comparison to these books, these tomes of blood, guts, and - above all - massive fucking cojones.

Enjoy, discuss and fucking COWER in fear at the powerful prose that is about to singe your fucking eyebrows and smooth out your wrinkly, demented brains!

Best New COMIC series: SCALPED by Jason Aaron, R.M. Guera

There ain't much going on in crime comics at the moment (hopefully that will change with Vertigo's Crime Line in 2009) but what's there is fucking CHOICE. Scalped is not just the best thing going in comics but the best thing in crime PERIOD. This stuff is raw and completely uncompromised. Every character gets their time to shine and none of their storylines disappoint at all. If this were even half-way properly adapted into a television show it would hold its own with Deadwood, The Sopranos, and The Wire without a fucking doubt.

Best New STANDALONE Crime Novel: Savage Night by Allan Guthrie

Yeah, my love of Guthrie peppers every line of this little blog so this is probably no surprise - shit, I even predicted this would win back when I first reviewed it - but god damn this book kicked my ass. Guthrie is leading the pack as far as going all the way, taking the genre farther than we ever thought possible. Savage Night is extremely violent, agonizingly suspenseful, pathetically tragic, and absolutely hilarious. It seems the only way he could shock me next go around would be to write a sunny little book about an old lady and her crime solving cats. That said, he'll probably prove me dead-fucking-wrong.

Best New SERIES Crime Novel: Toros & Torsos by Craig McDonald

The Hector Lassiter novels are so ambitious, so meticulously researched, so ingenious that just about anybody who enjoys good fiction can appreciate them. Thankfully for hard-ass pulp fans like me, McDonald also fucking BRINGS IT with the noir goodies as well. For all its scope and history, Toros & Torsos never forgets to first and foremost entertain sick fucks like the Nerd with it's badass lead character, its shocking violence and its twisted, dread-filled plot. This guy covers all the bases in an unforced, refreshing, beautiful way. Hector Lassiter LIVES!

Best NEWLY DISCOVERED Crime Novel: Black Friday by David Goodis

It is always exciting to pick up an old gold standard of the genre and find that yeah, it actually IS a fucking gold fucking standard! The only thing about Black Friday that makes it stick out amongst the great novels of the present is an overall lack of cell phones and the word "fuck," otherwise this shit is as badass as a crime junkie could ask for. It hums along at a breakneck speed with a tight plot and gives you tons of fantastic, darkly shaded characters along the way. Kudos to Serpent's Tail for making more of Goodis's shit available. Keep that shit up!

So there you have it, my meaningless-yet-apparently-necessary list of the best crime novels I read in 2008. Naturally, if you've even glanced at this site before you can tell that I loved the shit out of a ton of other novels last year, but these are the greatest of the great, if such a distinction is possible. I didn't bother with honorable mentions or any of that shit because the Nerd's time is precious...which is why he has a rinky-dink blog...

SCALPED VOL 03: DEAD MOTHERS comes out!

Jason Aaron and R.M. Guera have just put out the third trade of Scalped. their kick-ass series about a shady-as-shit Indian Reservation. I cannot stress this enough, folks: If you like noir, you should be reading Scalped. That's all I should have to say. Hands down, the comic you should be reading.

But, I'll continue because I've got nothing better to do.

This series is what I always dreamt of when I first discovered comics, an event that wasn't that long ago (I know: for a nerd I am late to the party). Scalped is a large cast crime story with a fresh environment where there are no good guys and bad guys. The violence hits hard and the dialogue is foul and funny. Basically, it is The Sopranos on a Rez. In fact, if David Chase ever adapted the series for HBO, I would give up beer.

Well, for at least a week.

So I implore you, dear nerd, to pick up the first three trades (Indian Country, Casino Boogie and Dead Mothers) then quickly get caught up on the issues. That should tide you over until the lazy bastards who put out Criminal finally pick up their current run. I swear, what is the fucking hold up over at ICON? Criminal is on possibly the most staggered and fucked up schedule of all time.

But I digress: Scalped fever. Catch it.

SCALPED #17 OUT TODAY!

If you still think comics are all about capes, masks and superpowers I urge you to check out Jason Aaron and R.M. Guera's series Scalped, published by DC Vertigo.

Scalped is the story of Dash Bad Horse, the violent son of Lakota activist who returns to his birthplace after being away many years: The Rez. After getting drunk and generally fucking shit up around town, the owner of the new casino (and practically everything legal and illegal on the reservation), Chief Red Crow, gives him a job on his extremely corrupt tribal police force. From there we soon learn that Bad Horse is actually working with the FBI to bring down Red Crow from the inside, but even then nothing is what it seems.

Aaron's storytelling is what comics should strive for. His plot moves swiftly and opens up a world seldom seen in any form: the modern Indian Reservation. Guera depicts this world with drawings so gritty that sometimes you can't even look at the despair plastered across the page. But Aaron's down and dirty story keeps you trucking on through the nastiness with his vulgar dialogue, graphic violence and sex, and a constantly twisting (yet seemingly authentic) plot. There are meth labs, racist cops, corrupt cops, evil Hmong gangsters, murdered kids, torture scenes, police brutality, shootouts, bloody brawls, and even a crazy Indian on a horse. This stuff goes all the way and doesn't look back.

When I bought issue 17 this morning at St. Paul's greatest comic store The Source, the guy behind the counter said of friend his had reccomended it to him, calling it "The Sopranos on an Indian Reservation." That works just fine for me.

Right now there are two trade paperbacks - Indian Country and Casino Boogie - available along with the issues. 17 marks the end of the latest storyline.