PHILIP MARLOWE ILLUSTRATED: RAYMOND CHANDLER'S TROUBLE IS MY BUSINESS

Philip Marlowe became the hard boiled P.I. others like to interpret the most. Raymond Chandler's detective with a code and a quip has been portrayed in radio, film, t.v. and other author's books. Writer Arvind Ethan David, penciler and inker Ilias Kyriazis, and colorist Chris Peter collaborate to bring him to graphic novel form in Raymond Chandler's Trouble Is My Business.

Chandler's original short story has his typical start and moves toward a traditional ending. Henry Jeeter, a rich old man, hires Marlowe to dig up dirt on Harriet Huntress (could there be a more femme'fatale name?) who has her gold digging claws into his adopted stepson Gerald. Jeeter initially hired another operative, Aberghat but he's proving to slow. Marlowe goes to Aberghast to get up to speed and finds the man dead of a gunshot wound in his office. Other bodies pile up as he searches for the truth with a set of both thugs and cops irritating him. Suspects include, Huntress, who Marlowe learns has a deeper motive. Jeeter, and Marty Estel a underground casino owner Harriet shills for and Gerald owes $50 ground too,near the end he rounds everyone up in a room like Agatha Christie's Hercule Peroite to reveal the perpetrator.

The adaptation takes liberties that work. They move the period up to 1946 from the 1939 publishing date. David and company capture both the optimism and jadedness of the postwar era. We get a flashback of a decision Marlowe made in combat that nags him with guilt. The biggest is expanding the role of Jeeter's chauffeur and bodyguard, now named George, and making him a man of color. He and Marlowe develop a buddy-cop relationship.

Kyriazis and Peters walk a fine line with noir style. They avoid the leaning in too hard into the anachronistic with venetian blind opticals and figures half lit from street lamps. They do deal into the npir style of extremes. Each character is given their own color pallet, The line work plays with different amounts of thickness,

All three deftly deal with the challenge of Chandler's dialogue that often carries the story in both bringing out its strengths and translating it to word and picture form. They visualize any story being told by a character almost as mini-short stories their own style and the verbal back and forths Marlowe has are portrayed in splash pages with rising and falling word balloons that weave between each other, expressing the rhythm. Kyriazis picks from the story's sharpest dialogue and plays off of it.

They three find the tragedy in the tarnished knight of Marlowe. David plays into his most cynical traits and dialogue. He only connects with people who prove their capability or connects to their pain. Kryiazis and Peter portray him with a rumple look and with shades of brownish gray. Many times his eyes are hidden under the shadow of his fedora brim. The pale yellow smoke from his cigarette trails behind him like a haunting spectre.

The creators of Raymond Chandler's Trouble Is My Business not only take their cues from Marlowe's creator, but other he influenced. THey pull from Roman Polanski, Robert Towne, Michael Mann, Walter Mosley, Frank Miller and other who evolved off of Chandler's work give a modern feel to a classic detective yarn and give the author's prose style cinematic. I hope they delve into Marlowe's other short stories. May I suggest "Finger Man".