The Hat Squad

Written By Jay Faerber
Art & Lettering Eric Yonge
B&W, Graphic Novel
Moonstone Noir, 2002

Based on the same real-life group of Fifties LAPD detectives that inspired the 1996 film Mulholland Falls, this 48-page graphic novel marks writer Jay Faerber's (Dodge's Bullets) first professional foray into the crime comics genre.

The Hat Squad is set in pre-Miranda Rights Los Angeles, 1955. Sgt. Jake Thurman is the head of "The Hat Squad," four big, tough plainclothes cops from Robbery-Homicide, who aren't afraid to bust heads and break rules in pursuit of what they consider justice. When B-movie actress Shiela Rivers is brutally beaten to death with a baseball bat, the Squad sets out to find the killer. When they finally do, they realize that they don't have enough evidence to convict the perp legally, so they arrange to have him "punished" for his crime... outside the law.

I have to admit, I have a number of problems with this book. While Faerber is a talented writer and clearly loves the genre, this particular story just doesn't quite work for me. Characterizations are so slight as to be practically non-existent – I just re-read it, and of the four members of the Hat Squad I can only recall the names of three of them. I know that one is the young, inexperienced rookie, one might be married with a kid, and another has a moustache. And that they all really like beating people up. That's it.

As detectives, well, the only investigative technique they seem to know is finding people who might have known the victim and questioning them with their fists. Even when they finally do "find" the person they believe is the killer, it's based on the word of an informant with a grudge, and they have no actual evidence whatsoever. In fact, I'm still not sure they had the right guy.

And you know, I do realize that might have been the point – that maybe the book is intended to be an indictment of police brutality and how such methods actually undermine justice... but if so, the message is muddled by the characters' – and creators' – apparent enthusiasm for violence.

The dialogue is also problematic. It's a period piece, but some of the expressions voiced by the characters don't ring true to the book's milieu. In one scene, a homosexual suspect is referred to as "gay," and my understanding is that that particular term didn't come into common use until some years later. I'm thinking that a tough L.A. detective in '55 would probably have used "queer" or "fruit" instead. I'm also not sure that people – other than beatniks, maybe – "hung out" all that much in the mid-Fifties. These aren't necessarily mistakes – hell, I wasn't around back then, and I'm no linguistics expert – but they did jar, and slightly undermined the verismilitude of Faerber's story.

Eric Yonge's art is quite good, for the most part. The storytelling is clear and easy to follow. His figure work is solid, faces are distinctive, and the period clothing and backgrounds are all very well-drawn and appear authentic. The inking is competent and professional, but there's not much there in the way of texture, shadow or atmosphere. Frankly, the open, airy linework desperately cries out for color. In B&W, it just looks unfinished.

I would like to see Faerber return to the genre – and even this property – one day. He's got a lot more experience under his belt now, and his enthusiasm and affection for the genre is evident.

As it is, The Hat Squad is not a bad book, it's just not as strong as it could have been.

Three out of Six Bullets.