The Crime Clinic #1

Re-reading this comic now, the first thing that strikes me is how textually dense it is. But the main thing is really how singular and unique it is for its time. One must remember that the mid-90s comic book market was extremely dominated by superhero comics and that the tiny alternative scene was made up almost exclusively of humor, semi-autobiographical and autobiographical comics. I’m really struck that Dylan’s Crime Clinic comes out of a completely different tradition... the genre comics that had for the most part vanished at least thirty years before. While the Crime Clinic approach is obviously inspired by the crime genre comics of the mid-20th century (even taking its name from one!), it’s not an ironically hip retro revival of the approach. It seems to me Dylan just tried to make his own take on those comics. I think it was more an attempt at a continuation, where Dylan tried to add his own voice into a vanished era of comics that he wished still existed.

From what I remember, the original idea was to make many of these comics. Unfortunately sales were dismal and only two issues were ever published. CLICK HERE to read the first issue, published by Slave Labor Graphics in May 1995.