Night Fever

Always worth a read, Ed Brubaker and Sean and Jacob Phillips have been banging out nice, little, complete stories on the regular and I'll support them as long as they keep up the great work! This came out as I was watching the new Black Mirror episodes and there was some cool resonance between them.

Excellent. A bit dark, even for comic or film noir. And a bit short, but, it is nevertheless a riveting story. The ending is very well played.

Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips rarely ever put out a bad book and this is no exception. In this we see a man, a former bad boy, who had long been domesticated backslide into his thrill-filled criminal way. While the overall premise has enough drama in itself, the narrative is also filled with questions of identity and the middle-aged man's place in society. Read it in a day and loved it.

Good ol fashion crime noir with wonderful wonderful artwork, I didn’t want it to end.

While most of Brubaker's stories stretch credulity, they are grounded in realism. What you're seeing could happen, though the odds are probably against it. This story is wildly implausible. That's not to say it isn't entertaining. But be prepared for coincidences and the protagonist's ability to survive things that would leave most of us dead. Also, aliens. Yes, there are aliens in this story. It's hard to think of a better writer of comics than Brubaker, especially in fiction. He's basically competing against himself. So, compared to his other work, this is disappointing. I'm glad I read it, though. The artwork -- Phillip's continues to impress -- and the coloring are great.

This graphic novel is thoroughly enjoyable for anyone who enjoys thrillers with horror elements. At times it is primal, visceral. At others, it speaks to the sort of deep questions that reveal themselves in the darkness. While it leaves some of these deep questions unanswered, perhaps the point was not the answer but the asking. Beginning with the creative team, Brubaker and Phillips have been collaborating for years now and their creative synergy shows in this book. These two seem to be at the height of their powers, telling a story here that is seamless. The art is expressive and moody, reminiscent of some of the greatest noir storytelling. This is helped along particularly well by the work of Jacob Phillips on colors. The story itself is about a man on a business trip who begins to question the meaning of his life. He travels to a place, does his job, goes home. Wash, rinse, repeat. But this trip is different. Suffering from insomnia he chooses to step outside of his normal routine and live a little. He quickly finds himself in some strange and intense places, and he links up with another individual who continues to lead him through his nightly wanderings. As the story progresses, the main character takes on a new persona, becoming increasingly violent, increasingly promiscuous, increasingly dangerous until one fateful morning he wakes up to find that someone has been killed. His memories hazy and unreliable, he is not completely sure if it was him that did the killing. In true thriller fashion we see a couple of interesting twists as the story barrels toward its conclusion. In the interest of avoiding spoilers, I will say that the twists were satisfying and added to the enjoyment of the story. Night Fever is a graphic novel produced by some the greatest comic creators of this generation and represents years of collaborative work and it shows. The setting and tone of this book is a bit of a departure from previous collaborations between Brubaker and Phillips, but like their previous work, it remains an excellent read. I especially enjoyed sitting with the questions that were being asked and wondering even upon finishing the story if everything was what it seemed to be. Night Fever is a great book that I would recommend to anyone who enjoys a good graphic thriller.

I found the story in Night Fever extremely compelling, with enough shocking moments, Parisian streets, and fever-like dream states to last a lifetime. Jonathan Webb is a middle-aged man working in the publishing world. He isn't disgruntled, because he would actually have to care to be considered disgruntled. Webb is on his way to Paris for a work event and decides to pick up a forthcoming book he is supposed to promote there. The book mentions a dream – a very specific and haunting dream. It’s a dream he knows well because he has had that dream before. Once Webb reaches Paris, he can’t sleep. How could he? It's too bizarre a situation. So he walks the streets of Paris late at night. What he stumbles into is a bizarre world of parties, crime, and power. He meets a man who changes his life and seems to know him intrinsically. Night Fever is a noir masterpiece. It is a deep dive into the spiraling mind of a man in the middle of the worst sort of mid-life crisis. I loved every second of it. It is weird, incredibly dark, and even has a couple of (maybe not real) aliens. Art: The art in Night Fever is remarkable and perfected by the coloring of Jacobs Philips. To say I enjoyed it would be an understatement. There is one particular scene where Webb is high out of his mind. The art in that scene could not have been better. Those few pages include some of the best graphic novel art I have ever seen. Final Thoughts: I know Night Fever is more of a middle-aged man’s comic. It practically has mid-life crisis written all over it. But I loved the heck out of this, and I even enjoyed it more than Where the Body Was, which I enjoyed a great deal. I can’t wait to read more Brubaker and Phillips. Thanks to Image Comics for providing a review copy. All the above thoughts are my own.

Espetacular. Uma trama simples sobre um homem mundano que se permite tentar ser algo a mais. O que os sonhos escondidos dentro de uma pessoa pode fazer com ela quando se tem a oportunidade se aproveitá-los? Brubaker e Phillips acertam novamente

If you’re like me, there’s a whole shelf devoted to the ongoing literary love affair between Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips, recently enhanced with Jacob Phillips’ colour art. Night fever is the latest release and breaks from the recent run of Relentless graphic novels. First up; the art is stellar. It always is, but Phillips ably captures a drenched in darkness France and his characters have the usual easy to distinguish designs and everything looks superb and flows really well. Him being coloured by his son has upped his game and the fact he has maintained such high standards for so long is downright amazing. The story…was kind of meh. I’m an unashamed Brubaker fanboy. I pre order everything with his name on it and as soon as it lands I devour it. This just didn’t hit with me. I think the weird sequence 2/3rds into the book took me out of the story and left me scratching my head the rest of the way. Then it just…stops and ends. A previous reviewer mentioned a plot hole and that too exists and is as gaping as the Atlantic the character is crossing. One caption box doesn’t address that hole… I think there’s a clue in the title, the whole thing could be an insomniacs fever dream, but there’s nothing to elaborate or develop that idea, or that there’s perhaps some Fincher fight club style shenanigans going on. I’ll obviously re-read it. See if something unravels in my head and some thread unspools something that makes the penny drop. But until then 3 stars for the story. The art is as usual drop dead gorgeous. The bar is unfathomably high with Sean Phillips, he is easily one of the best in the game and to have ever been in the game. The fact he produces so often and so consistently is probably testament to his work ethic and process. Superb. The book itself is top quality as well. Hard bound, good quality paper and no spine splitting and the pages turn with no gutter loss.