WHO KILLED SARAH SHAW? / Script by FRANKEE WHITE / Art and Letters by ADAM MARKIEWICZ / Published by DAUNTLESS STORIES

January 1986. Hardground, Michigan. Popular high school athlete Sarah Shaw is found dead, stabbed to death repeatedly, by the side of the road out of town. The killer was never caught and the case went cold immediately. Yet most folks blamed Marvin Rainey, who disappeared six months to the day after Sarah’s death.

October 2022. Jes and Dave host “Cracking A Cold One,” a true crime podcast devoted to cold case murders. They managed to last four seasons in that competitive market, despite the lackluster and tactless title. Unfortunately, they are newly arrived in Hardground when their producer calls to tell them they’ve been cancelled and the episode on the Sarah Shaw case will be their last.

This leads the desperate duo to try and solve the case rather than just discuss it, in the hopes of earning a new season. That decision will air a lot of Hardground’s dirty laundry and pit them against the local sheriff. It may also put them on the radar of Sarah Shaw’s real killer… whoever they are.

Who Killed Sarah Shaw? is unlike any murder mystery I’ve ever read. Writer Frankee White clearly knows the genre and loves it. The town of Hardground is populated with many colorful characters, most of whom had a reason to kill Sarah Shaw. As Jes and Dave interview everyone from Sarah’s best friend to her basketball coach to the wife of the prime suspect, the popular image of Sarah Shaw as an innocent all-American girl begins to erode.

This is fairly typical stuff. However, what distinguishes Who Killed Sarah Shaw? from other crime comics is its protagonists. Jes and Dave are not idealists driven by a desire for the truth. They are out to save their jobs, first and foremost, and don’t care how many lives they destroy in the process. Indeed, they take a certain amount of sadistic glee when they are given the chance to expose a different crime than the one they set out to solve. This is a drastically different take from the usual journalist hero that normally headlines this sort of story. Despite this, they are far from amoral, and much of the drama is built of the conflict between Jes and Dave as to where they draw the line.

The artwork is build on a similar deceptive simplicity. Adam Markiewicz draws every panel with deep details and deeper shadows. Coupled with the script, this gives Who Killed Sarah Shaw? the feel of an illustrated Film Noir. This may see, incongruous, given Noir is usually the province of big cities and post-World War II, but it fits the tone. Yet there are some snatches of humor in the art, despite the dark subject matter. My favorite is a fantasy sequence involving rumors of a satanic cult, depicting Marvin Rainey in the robe of The Master from “Manos” The Hands of Fate. It is little touches like that which show the care that went into this comic.

Fans of true crime and murder mysteries would do well to check out Who Killed Sarah Shaw? However, I think it has broad enough appeal to find an audience with a variety of readers. I enjoyed it immensely and recommend it most highly.

Who Killed Sarah Shaw? is now being crowdfunded in a TP edition on Kickstarter. It can also be purchased as a web comic on Patreon.