COMICS BUYER’S GUIDE #1000 January 15, 1993 COMICS Guide By Don Thompson Andrew Henry Vachss is an attorney with, as it states on his letterhead, an "individual practice limited to matters concerning children and youth."" For those who abuse children, Andrew Vachss is their worst nightmare—a relentless nemesis driven by hatred of them and compassion for their victims with the legalistic knowledge to fight them in the courts and sent them away. He is not soft on crime, certainly not where children are concerned. His views are clearly stated: "Kiddie pornography is not a ‘First Amendment’ issue. Is is a picture of a crime." He doesn’t buy into any defense involving lack of intent: "Sexual molestation of children is a volitional act. It is a matter of choice." "Incest is not ‘family dysfunction.’ It is rape-by-extortion." "Pedophiles are not ‘homosexuals.’ We would not call a man who molested a 5-year-old girl a ‘heterosexual.’ Whatever the sex of the adult and the child, the proper description is simple: The adult is the perpetrator, the child is the victim." "The crime of ‘incest’ should be eliminated, and replaced with a flat law against sexual intercourse with minors, regardless of the biological relationship between perpetrator and victim. An offender should not enjoy a lessor exposure to prison simply because he grew his own victim." The above quotations are all from an article by Vachss (pronounced "Vax") in Parade Magazine for Aug. 20, 1989. He has put his money where his mouth is and has devoted his entire legal career to defending children and prosecuting those who abuse them. This is an often frustrating and never lucrative career (layers of Vachss’ caliber can make a lot more money more easily than by fighting attorney’s who specialize in defending child-rapers), so he wrote a novel, to his surprise, earned quite a bit of money, so he has written more of them, pouring the money they earn into making his office more efficient and aiding him in helping the victims of abuse. There is a lot of cross-pollination in Vachss’ approach. The law practice supplies the raw material for the novels and the novels help to support the law practice. The novels help feature a man named Burke who also devotes his life to fighting those who abuse children. The difference is that Burke doesn’t use the law, he operates outside it. He cures the child abusers permanently, something no psychiatrist or court seems to be able to do. He kills them. Before everyone jerks a knee and writes to protest the above comment, have another brace of quotations from Vachss: "Pedophiles do not regret their actions, they glory in them. They regret only the possibility of consequences to themselves, not the certainty of damage to their victims." "I have encountered many predatory pedophiles. Some boast of their crimes, claiming that only a rigid, puritanical society prevents children from ‘freedom of sexual expression.’ Some claim they are ‘addicts,’ unable to stop themselves from preying on children. But the only pedophiles I have ever heard express remorse for their acts are those facing a sentencing court or a parole board." Vachss has written half a dozen novels about Burke: Blue Belle, Flood, Strega, Hard Candy, Blossom, and Sacrifice. They are unrelentingly hard, tough novels, powerful and uncompromising, filled with disturbing stories of horrors perpetrated upon children. These stories are even more disturbing because they are drawn from real cases. There once was a crime-fiction magazine called Manhunt, which specialized in truly hardboiled stories by the likes of Mickey Spillane and Evan Hunter. It is much sought after, particularly the earlier issues from the 1950’s, by aficionados of the hardnosed crime story. Vachss’ stories makes Manhunt seem like Jack and Jill. I must mention that Vachss has a weakness as a writer, the traditional mark of a fledgling writer: Burke (like Vachss) is a chain smoker, and an inordinate percentage of each book is taken up with Burke smoking—buying cigarettes, opening packs, taking out cigarettes, tapping them, putting them in his mouth, lighting them, smoking them, talking about smoking, griping about not being able to smoke wherever and whenever he wants, crushing out a cigarette, lighting another. None of this advances the plot or establishes character; it is of less than no interest to the reader, particularly the nonsmoking reader. All this accomplishes is to give the protagonist something to do with his hands and thus give the illusion of action to talking-head sequences, as well as turning a novelette into a novel by doubling or tripling the word count. It is, in fact, unmerciful padding which detracts from the overall impact of the novels. That Vachss’ work succeeds is due to the importance and power of what his books are about, not the tobacco-fiddling which pads them. In fact, though Vachss is first of all an attorney and secondarily a novelist, this major talent (at least as a writer) is his astonishing gift for creating vignettes—tiny fragments of story which are like hypodermic needles: short, sharp, and carrying a jolt. Every one of his novels contains sequences, often of only a few hundred words, sometimes only a few dozen, which can be lifted out of context and stood on their own as independent entities. He is a novelist whose true metier is the short-story. For the Summer 1989 issue of Pursuits magazine, writer Frank Kuznik interviews Vachss for an article called "the Avenger," which was sent to me in photocopy form (along with Vachss’ Parade article by Dark Horse Publishing. Kuznik, to whom I am indebted for the pronunciation of Vachss’ name and the incidental intelligence that "he’s got a voice like Dr. Doom and more barriers around his private life than Howard Hughes," quotes a passage from Blue Belle which is a sample of what I mean. In it, Burke is talking about rescuing a 14-year-old girl who was working the streets as a prostitute: "[She] turned over all her money to some dirt-bag who beat her up and sent her back for more. I was taking her to this place I know, where they’d keep her safe, and I asked her about being a runaway. I thought you ran away to get to a better place. She told me she was in a better place." This excerpt from BLUE BELLE was written by Andrew Vachss. Excerpt used by permission. © 1999 Andrew Vachss. All rights reserved. OK, now you know about Vachss the lawyer and Vachss the novelist and Vachss the master of the vignette. So why am I devoting this column in CBG #1000—a pretty choice spot for plugging a product, if I do say it myself—to this guy? What does he have to do with comic books? It’s what I said about cross-pollination: He’s now doing comic books to plug the novels to bolster the law practice. In turn, the popularity of the novels brings people to the comic books. Dark Horse is publishing a series of comic books adapting Vachss’ stories—some of them vignettes pulled from his novels—into comic-book form in HARD LOOKS. Dark Horse has gone all out on this, commissioning moody, dark, street-wise covers by the likes of Tim Bradstreet, Warren Pleece, James O’Barr and Gary Gianni. The stories are adapted by Dave Gibbons, Barbara Kesel and Rick Magyar, Neal Barrett Jr. and Gianni, Chris Warner, Chet Williamson and Pleece, Randy Stradley and David Lloyd, George Pratt, Jerry Prosser and O’Barr, Joe R. Lansdale and Gianni, Barret and Chris Moeller—heavy hitters, all. They redefine "grim and gritty" to the point where you’ll never use it on pap like The Punisher again. Each issue also contains a text story by Vachss, with illustrations by Richard Olsen, Tony Fitzpatrick, Pleece, or Bradstreet. Every one of the these stories is brutal, but it is not meant to be. Most of them—not all, but most—deal with child abuse, either as motivational for revenge or as a cause of later-life problems. It’s strong stuff and, as they say, not for the squeamish. Not for the squeamish. Real life is not for the squeamish either, you know. Hard Looks is an outstanding comic book series, one which could and should serve a valuable purpose in alerting people to menace. At the least, this series can earn a few more bucks to help Vachss fight the real-life monsters he uses as raw material for his fiction. But the real point of this column is not to plug Hard Looks—great though it is—but to plug a forthcoming hard cover book by Vachss from Dark Horse. The book is called Another Chance To Get It Right and it is a tad difficult to classify. It isn’t a novel, it isn’t a book for children (though a portion here or there certainly should be made available to children), and it isn’t entirely nonfiction. It is primarily an essay, illuminated by vignettes, about children—our greatest resource and our hope for the future—and the horrible things we permit to happen to them. Vachss calls it "A children’s book for adults." The book is packed with vignettes, powerful ones which pack an enormous amount of emotion and importance into a minimum of words. I will quote one in full and describe a couple of others (inadequately) and hope (fervently) that you will buy the book—you can order it through your comics shop which, in turn, can order it through its distributor—and educate yourself.    "I saw an infant lying against a tree deep inside a war-torn jungle, too weak to cry. A woman ran past me, covered only with a strip of cloth, a tiny knife in her hand. She stopped, scooped the baby into one arm, and kept running. A blood-bonded adoption, driven by an instinct no war could kill." This excerpt from ANOTHER CHANCE TO GET IT RIGHT was written by Andrew Vachss. Excerpt used with permission. © 2001 Andrew Vachss. All rights reserved. Think about that paragraph for a few minutes and realize how much is contained in those 57 words (59 if you count two hyphenates as two words each). It is a complete story as it stands or the opening chapter of an epic novel, without an unnecessary word or phrase. The man is good, no two ways about it. Other vignettes are varied in length and mood. A boy set upon by bullies drives them away with just a few chilling words. A child’s battle against Japanese beetles takes on a larger meaning in the context of this book and Vachss’ own chosen career. And, in a moving and incredibly well done chapter (this is the one you should read aloud to small children), two small boys and their wooden spaceship form an allegory for world peace and brotherhood which does not preach at all, but which gets its message across in an unforgettable way. Oh, yes—one other thing about Another Chance To Get It Right; It is illustrated by Tim Bradstreet, Paul Chadwick, Geof Darrow, Rick Geary, Gary Gianni, Dave Gibbons, and Warren Pleece. The editor is Jerry Prosser, who does as superb a job on this as he does on Hard Looks. It costs about $25 and should be on sale by the time you read this. It’s a vital, important book. It’s a great book. Don’t miss it.

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"More than just rough talk and slick prose, each page of Safe House reads like a literary title fight with Vachss trying to put every other pulp writer down for the count. Tough, terse, vivid, Vachss keeps pouring on until, from equal measure bruising and pleasure, the reader screams 'No more, baby, no more.' If it were anymore real you'd get twenty-five to life just for cracking the cover." —John Ridley  "Among writers of suspense, Andrew Vachss' work stands out for its substance, integrity, and absorbing readability.Safe House has all the distinctive Vachss virtues—a seductive style, a thought-provoking story, and the creation of an utterly convincing world. I read it compusively, and with great pleasure." —Richard North Patterson