The Fade Out #4

There are three forces working against each other in The Fade Out: the mystery of Val Sommers’ death, Charlie’s role in it, and the endless onslaught of Hollywood intrigue. By all rights, Val’s murder should be the constant focus of the series, and if Charlie was a more typical protagonist, he’d make it that way. But Charlie hasn’t been blessed with the conviction and self-righteousness of most protagonists; he’s not driven to probe the matter any further nor to reveal what he knows even if he does.

Brubaker’s put a lot of craft into his story, but most of all into making Charlie a pathetic, but also sympathetic, character. Right now, Charlie’s at his most vulnerable, psychologically and vocationally. He’s been evasive about his war experiences, but here we learn that things “happened to him over there,” which isn’t what he signed up for when he joined the war effort as an observer and documentarian. Whatever happened, it’s smothered his former, Oscar-nominated talent, and with his writing days behind him, he’s living off that most fragile of qualities: his reputation.

It’s hard to imagine Charlie maintaining his camaraderie with Rath, the attraction of Dottie, or even the brief attention of Clark Gable if it comes out that his only product these days is derived from an even more troubled drunkard than him. Charlie’s right to be anxious about spilling the beans to Gil. It’s not just that Gil’s alcoholism and temperament make him an unreliable confidante. They may be friends, but in a town where betrayal gets you further than integrity, you can imagine Gil burying Charlie’s reputation to excavate his own.

Meanwhile, the Hollywood machine grinds on, fueled by the combustion between rumor and fiction. On the surface are the elaborate P.R. set-ups, like Maya and Tyler Graves’ “date.” But these are merely flotsam atop a sea of barely suppressed scandals: the suggestion that Graves isn’t “enough of a man,” Rath’s collection of provocative photos, word that Ronald Reagan is secretly reporting his peers to McCarthyists, etc. Each and every one of these morsels is pretty juicy, and there seems to be an endless supply threatening to lead Charlie off the path towards finding Val’s murderers.

Even if all this fails, there are other distractions. Charlie’s relationship with Dottie is coming into question, with neither Charlie, Rath, nor Dottie herself able to tell whether the two of them are on a date. Dottie’s not exactly an innocent here, but she does exist outside the direct orbit of the main players’ complicated lives, which makes her something of a casualty when she does get drawn in and left sobbing in the ladies room. Earlier in the evening, Rath remarks that Dottie’s someone to be feared, which now feels less a joke and more a legitimate warning.

There’s no such consideration for Maya, who, if anything, poses an even greater danger to Charlie’s resolve. The biggest motivating factor for Charlie to look into Val’s death is Val herself, but with Maya presenting her own charms (“Oh, darn that dream.”) and looking more and more like Val every issue, you have to wonder if Charlie will settle for Val’s stand-in, just like everyone else.

I have a screenwriter friend who once taught me that the best cinematography is the kind where almost every shot looks like a good photo. Applied to comics, the best comic book art is the kind where almost every panel looks like a good painting, which Phillips’ work always does. As a sucker for impressionism, I love that he emphasizes light and shadow over line, which he can bring into sharper or softer focus as necessary, almost like he’s expertly manipulating a camera himself. And he may even have Gary Frank beat in the arena of creating perfectly realized human faces; it’s one thing to create faces that look like people you may see off the street, but something on another level to create faces that look like people you may see off the street in a completely different period.

Some Musings:

– Charlie recollects Dottie yelling in the ladies room: “—course I didn’t think it was a real date, idiot. God, just shut up!” Was she yelling at him? In the ladies room? Because that’s interesting.