Murderburg
Cartoonist: Carol Lay
Publisher: Fantagraphics – Fantagraphics Underground
Publication Date: March 2025
It’s fine.
The problem with writing a review of anything that’s simply “fine” is that there’s not a lot to say about it. A work that is terrible, for example, can highlight ways in which one might do it better or even allow one to burn it down to the ground for being horrendous. A problematic work can have a fascinating approach to what it wanted or could have been. And a great work can inspire one to engage with the themes and structure that makes it great.
But a perfectly fine work like Carol Lay’s Murderburg leaves one perplexed as to how to approach it. You can certainly see the influences, most notably in The Addams Family. Murderburg is, largely, a familial story about the mayor of the titular burg trying to keep it afloat from rival mobsters, devilish black widows, and snobs. But it lacks the gothic wit of Charles Addams’ classic work. It remains rather banally basic in how it engages with the relationship between a murderous small town and the world outside of it.
If this were a more interesting work, one could make the comparison to Twin Peaks. However, unlike a work like the Hobtown Mystery Stories, the comparison reveals nothing about the work. Sure, you could try to compare the Murderburg’s psychic Mme Anya to the Log Lady, but all that would do is reveal how obvious and cliched the former is, right down to dressing up like Cleopatra.
And, to be completely honest, it’s not a bad comic. There are some charming moments, in particular within the vignette “Art Attack,” and the short story “Knit One” is a well done work of melancholy and loss. And the art, while largely simplistic and obvious in terms of character design, nevertheless allows that simplicity to work well with regards to the comedy, especially with Stabby the Dog.
But that doesn’t change that this is a largely flat series of short stories where the humor more often misses than it hits. (One notable example being a gag in the first story, “A Farewell to Armories,” wherein a character spends the story completely naked after he was chased out of the house by the villainous whatsername, and there’s no real payoff beyond him appearing in the background for a panel or two.) It’s fine.
Murderburg is available this month
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