Hard Boiled Angel

    (CPM, 2004-2005)
™ and © 2004 Hyun Se Lee

A string of serial killings sends female detective Jiran Ha deep into her city’s seedy streets to find the killer in this series by Hyun se Lee.

This has a hard-boiled woman cop who smokes a lot (because graphically it comes off as, you know, sexy), wears dark glasses, and somehow ends up having to undress once or twice an episode. It’s well-drawn and well-composed, nevertheless, and, while it’s easy to see where the plot’s going, the story itself is a compelling and pretty page-turner. Hyun se Lee is touted as Korea’s top cartoonist, but he seems most influenced by such old-school Japanese creators as, say, Kazuo Koike circa Crying Freeman, and his world has more heft and weight to it than most current comics are able to achieve. You don’t even have to be a manga fan to understand or like it—partly because hard-boiled cops are an American genre, anyway, and partly because Lee’s just a good, universal storyteller.
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