Graphic Novel Review: WHO KILLED SARAH SHAW? is a sexy smalltown murder mystery

Who Killed Sarah Shaw?

Writer: Frankee White
Artist/Letterer: Adam Markiewicz
Publisher: Dauntless

Who Killed Sarah Shaw? — a new book from writer Frankee White and artist Adam Markiewicz — was first published in small chunks on Markiewicz’s Patreon throughout 2023 and into 2024. It’s a smalltown mystery with NSFW bits, done in the style of familiar direct market comics. I jumped into the story maybe 1/3 of the way through, and what I immediately found fascinating about it was how well the small increment releases of the pages served the story that the creators were telling. I think it’s definitely worth discussing that now, as the book raises money for a full print run via Kickstarter.

This book reminded me in some ways of another webcomics project soon to get a physical release that I wrote about earlier this month, with Brian K. Vaughan and Niko Henrichon’s Spectators. Both of these comics understood well that the Internet can be a very horny place, and many online evolutions — as well as generally tech evolutions — have been driven by pornography. Now, to be clear, Who Killed Sarah Shaw? does not have nearly as much sex or nudity as Spectators did, but the sexual relationship between the book’s two protagonist is a big part of the story.

That’s all to say that the NSFW elements make this comic a better fit for the webcomic-to-crowdfunding pipeline than it maybe would have been going right to the direct market, as is also the case with Spectators. The other element that helps here is the titular mystery. If you’re using a format that publishes in near-real time increments, I think it serves you well to have a clear engine that makes readers want to check back week-to-week, rather than waiting for the project to be completed, and the creators certainly pull that off here. Although, it’s also nice to have that engine in a full read as well, as I found out when I re-visited this one recently as a completed book.

The plot of this book is that two true crime documentarians (who as noted above have a relationship) have gone to a small town to make a program about a cold case. Their streaming show (which looks and sounds like a bad one, tbh) is on the brink of being cancelled, but they hope that if they solve this mystery with their last episode, it might save the show or otherwise provide a substantive boost to their careers. All the while they’re hooking up, which complicates things. So, with this book we have elements of romance, media opportunism, insular smalltown culture, and, of course, a cold case murder mystery.

Because it’s a cold case story, White’s plotting has to juggle two timelines and, essentially, two sets of characters — one in the present day, and one in the past, including some characters who looked and acted differently years ago. Or perhaps remember things differently for their own edification. Perspective is a big part of the questions being asked. It makes for a pretty absorbing story, the way cold case true crime stories tend to be, even if there’s plenty of tropes deployed here. Something simply goes off in your brain, making you want (or need) to know whodunnit. True crime stuff is popular for a reason, and that’s evident here in this comic that does a deep dive into the characterization of the people who make the true crime industry run.

Indeed, what’s more interesting is the interpersonal relationship between our two leads, as well as their own relationships to ambition. There’s murder stuff and fish-out-of-water smalltown stuff, but that all felt pretty familiar. Watching two relatable people unabashedly work to stir things up and exploit a tragedy for their own career gain has a certain crackle of electricity to it that I enjoyed quite a bit. There’s also some really suspenseful sequences (particularly toward the end) that put our leads in danger, and White’s scripting nails the pacing and tension.

Markiewicz artwork and lettering are a perfect fit for this story throughout. The art in this book is, simply put, impressive, excelling at facial acting and great, silent visual storytelling. Markiewicz knows when to zoom out and give us forlorn ambience, like a  panel of a lone car driving on a rural highway. There’s a lot of simple visuals in here that do a ton of narrative work, to the artist’s great credit. 

I also thought black-and-white gray tones were a great choice. Getting back to the publication format, Spectators similarly used this kind of color scheme, and I suspect it served the release schedule well on both books. But this is also a comic that takes place in a smalltown in winter, where one wouldn’t expect life to look very bright, and so it sets the tone to go with black-and-white rather than even muted colors. 

As with any murder mystery, though, the reveal plays an outsized role in the way this book ultimately lands. Who Killed Sarah Shaw? uses some conveniences to get us to our ending, stuff like a glued diary page that for years had gone unnoticed, but there’s also really compelling character arcs tangled up in what we learn in the end. And the story serves up a satisfying ambiguity as well, not overexplaining every last possibility or clue. It’s an old case, and while our heroes do find out new things about it, they don’t find out everything, and that feels right, feels natural.

I really enjoyed Who Killed Sarah Shaw? As I was re-reading it in full over the holidays, I was also listening to the The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast (bear with me here…). They were doing a thing where they ranked the SNL digital shorts that the Lonely Island guys have done by a couple criteria. The best of the best, the defining essential works were dubbed Criterion Collection, while the cool stuff that people deep into comedy might love were dubbed Kim’s Videos, after the famous video rental store in New York City. The Kim’s Videos skits were the ones that the real comedy sickos would recommend to turn people on to something new and different and interesting outside their normal viewing tendencies.

For me, Who Killed Sarah Shaw? falls firmly into that Kim’s Video award section. It’s the type of book I’ll pass to my comics friends who enjoy media commentary and sexy murder mysteries and watching up-and-coming writers and artists do new things and take big risks. And it absolutely deserves your support on Kickstarter this month.

Who Killed Sarah Shaw? is on Kickstarter now

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