REVIEW: Hank Howard, Pizza Detective in Caligula's Safe
By Zack Quaintance — I made a special trip to my local comic shop today, entirely to pick up Bad Idea’s latest comic, Hank Howard, Pizza Detective in Caligula’s Safe. The book is available at Bad Idea destination stores for 24 hours, meaning it can only be sold by retailers for $1 on May 12, which is why I made a special trip to get it today. Like seemingly everything Bad Idea does, this (admittedly and likely deliberately) gimmick stipulation drew fire in online comics discussion circles, outsized fire, seeing as Bad Idea to date has released a total of half a dozen comics since it debuted in March.
Based on the outrage online (which, yeah, I know, the nature of it is fraught, to say the least), you’d think they were the biggest publisher in the space, and these decisions were effecting literally everyone. I have seen them called a plague to local comic shops (none of whom have to carry the two books per month that Bad Idea releases) and I’ve seen them called the worst kind of capitalism (which, did that person forget about child labor? indentured servitude? Elon Musk?). It’s a bit absurd, seeing as they are a publisher of silly cartoon stories that cost less than $5 a pop and reach maaaaaybe 20,000 people, but I’ll save that rant for another time. Today I’m here to talk Hank Howard, Pizza Detective in Caligula’s Safe.
Limited-availability gimmickry aside, I really enjoyed this book. The lead story is illustrated by David Lapham, whose Stray Bullets is the single greatest crime comic of all time. Lapham is paired with Robert Venditti, whose other Bad Idea comic, is (probably) the single greatest time-travel story about Big Oil-funded mech warriors who are fighting dinosaurs to goose fossil fuel availability of all time. It’s a good pairing here for a funny story about a detective who works exclusively for the corporate office of a pizza chain.
It’s a funny concept, and the tone of the book takes it deathly serious. The humor to the story stems from pairing a stereotypical noir detective with a case that involves a small-scale pizza joint that got ripped off. But the creators commit as deeply as they have to to earn the laughs, and it’s great. One of Lapham’s great skills is illustrating ordinary people in his style in ways that are evocative of their actions and character, and he shines here drawing the cast around the titular detective, from the no-nonsense mom who is incensed her kid is being investigated to the part-time pizza worker kid himself. It’s a great mix of pairing Lapham’s style with a fun bit that comes just close enough to major poignancy at the end without quite hitting it.
What’s really for sale here is that this is a comic that only cares about being a great comic. And look, I know that sentence sounds silly. Who makes a comic without wanting that comic to be great? But there’s often agendas at work in comics publishing, from hoping for a TV/film adaptation to blatantly writing chapters of a future collected trade. This book (which, I shall remind you, is about a pizza detective) cares about none of that: it’s a goofy and self-aware graphic story that deploys the ample talents of an all-time great artist. And it’s only $1.
Oh, and in addition this book comes with a second story, which feels like a teaser for something unannounced that may eventually be a major book for Bad Idea (as much as a book for a publisher this small can be major). It’s called Leave Now, and it sees writer Matt Kindt (who also pens Bad Idea’s must-read lead comic, ENIAC) teaming with artist Tomas Giorello and colorist Diego Rodriguez. It’s a stunningly-good superhero concept, built around a lead character who can rewind and subsequently relive time, doing so in this story to lead his superhero teammates as they fight monstrous threats. In this story, the team shows up, gets roasted, the main character rewinds, and they try again. It’s a great concept, and this short story ends with an absolutely fantastic twist, which I won’t spoil in this review.
In the end, this comic was 100 percent worth the $1 and the trip to my local comic shop that I (somewhat annoyingly) had to make today, but you know what? I’m glad I went to my shop. It was the first time it had been opened since the pandemic again, and I got to browse, impulse buy, and chat with the manager, all of which are things I’d sorely missed. So yeah, if you’re not irrationally incensed about this small-imprint publisher’s goofy and mostly-irreverent gimmickry, definitely give this one a try today while you still can. It’s good comics; great fun at a low price. And do as I did and buy some other stuff while you’re there, keep the ol’ comics and commerce train humming.
Overall: David Lapham is easily the best modern crime comics cartoonist, and this $1 book sees him teaming with Robert Venditti for a story that makes for great comics. Also, the back-up story here has the potential to be HUGE. 8.5/10
REVIEW: Hank Howard, Pizza Detective in Caligula’s Safe, plus Leave Now
Hank Howard, PIzza Detective in Caligula’s Safe
Writer: Robert Venditti
Artist: David Lapham
Letterer: Simon Bowland
Publisher: Bad Idea
Price: $1.00
Leave Now
Writer: Matt Kindt
Artist: Tomas Giorello
Colorist: Diego Rodriguez
Letterer: Dave Sharpe
Publisher: Bad Idea
Price: $1.00
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Zack Quaintance is a tech reporter by day and freelance writer by night/weekend. He Tweets compulsively about storytelling and comics as Comics Bookcase.
