Step 1: Take all of your obvious tropes about female heroines, cops and reporters, and put them in a box. Step 2: Chuck that box in the trash. Step 3: Read Bury the Lede. Enjoy. BOOM! Studios is setting the pace for a new line of graphic novels targeted at adults with Bury the Lede. This crime drama is written by Gaby Dunn, who has done a little bit of everything but will mostly likely pop on Google with hits for her podcast Bad With Money With Gaby Dunn, two novels (I Hate Everyone But You, and Please Send Help) and as a writer for the Netflix comedy series Big Mouth. Dunn’s portfolio is broad, with podcasts, comedy sketches, novels, vlogs, a successful acting career and successful journalism projects tucked neatly under her belt. I think it’s safe to say this powerhouse writer can successfully add comics to her breadth. Bury the Lede is chock-full of wonderfully flawed, complex characters. I love nothing more than a main character that I don’t necessarily like, and a villain that I like more than I should. Madison Jackson is a round-faced intern at The Boston Lede who finds herself wrapped up in a murder investigation (and the scoop of the century) with the prominent socialite and apparent killer, Dahlia Kennedy. Madison is thoughtfully developed throughout the novel, gaining clout and backbone in her hungry pursuit of her career, while simultaneously blurring the lines on her integrity and pushing her family aside. Meanwhile, Dahlia sits in an orange jumpsuit under stark lighting on a pedestal behind glass. She lures in Madison, manipulates her masterfully, and drags me in as well. I want to know more about her, to piece together her brain in the same morbid way I want to know anything about a killer’s brain. Another fabulous piece of this collaboration is the prominence of not just women, but women of color and LGBT characters. It’s not something that’s put in the spotlight, but an element that blends perfectly into this world of multifaceted characters. It’s like Dunn and the artist, Claire Roe, have pieced together a quilt, taking care to work in many patterns and textures and layers with their story, without making any of them feel overworked. In this interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the editor Dafna Pledan sums it up beautifully: “The world is filled with very human, complex people, who just happen to be women. It’s not a world that forgets that sexism and racism is still alive and well, but it’s also not the only factor, or even the prime factor, defining their character arcs or lives. Every character in this story wants something, and sometimes that comes at the expense of other relationships in their lives.” Claire Roe delivers characters with such awesome, distinct styles. Lexington Ford’s swanky, androgynous outfits and sharp haircut fit her like a glove, and Madison’s oversized frumpy sweaters, big round specs, and feminist-repping t-shirts add a level to her character that we simply wouldn’t get otherwise. It’s not that Dunn has written flat characters, I’ve already covered that. It’s that Roe’s imagining and touches bring them to life, make them believable and real. It’s the difference between a selfie with one of those weird filters that make your skin look like plastic, and a true photo that shows a person’s pores, freckles, the crinkles by their eyes. One is human, the other is artificial. All of the design choices in these characters were intentional, as an added element to the story-telling, rather than ways to fill a page and make it interesting (which Roe still does, let there be no mistake.) There are moments where our characters escape their frames, or where color washes down behind the panels. All of it serves to keep our murder mystery in motion. It keeps us leaning forward, turning pages, waiting for the next tip. I’m not sure who to credit for the use of social media feeds (in addition to newspaper headlines) as a way to show the momentum gained in the case, but it’s done masterfully. I read them all. If you’re a person that has ever binge-watched Law and Order: SVU, this might be the graphic novel for you. I don’t care if you think you’re not into comics. Read anyway. And if you are into comics? Also read. Because not only does Bury the Lede serve up a great killer and a questionable protagonist, it leaves you hanging, waiting for the next call on the police scanner. It makes you wonder where the lines for humanity are drawn within each of us, and how easily we could be pushed from protagonist to villain. “Bury the Lede” is the first comic written by Gaby Dunn, illustrated by Clair Roe. The book follows Madison, an intern at the Boston Lede as she unwinds the tangled mystery of why one woman is being locked up for a crime that she did not commit. Is “Bury the Lede” able to satisfyingly untangle the web of mystery it sets up? Read on to find out.
At the heart of any mystery is tension. Really, this is true of almost any story, but in mysteries it’s even more so. Whether it is the interpersonal tension in noir stories, or the tension of whether the main character will be able to solve a mystery in whodunits, tension is the key to keeping a mystery alive. Without tension, a mystery just becomes a list of facts that eventually tie together in a (hopefully) satisfying bow. “Bury the Lede” is not entirely without tension, but it is something that the story is severely lacking. Yes, the intricacies of the plot are important, and “Bury the Lede” does an okay job creating the twists and turns of a case slowly pieces itself together. But what it lacks is driving force through the story. There’s no real tension about whether Madison, the main character, an intern at the fictional paper the Boston Lede will solve the story. Let me back up for a second. “Bury the Lede” follows Madison after she reports on a wealthy socialite’s, Dahlia Kennedy’s murder of her husband. After Dahlia is brought in by the police, she refused to talk to anyone but Madison. In these conversations, Dahlia starts giving Madison cryptic clue to unravel a mystery that is at the heart of Boston. It’s a bit reductive to sum up a story by referencing two pieces of pop culture, but I think it’s the easiest way to get at what exactly “Bury the Lede” is. It’s Spotlight by way of Silence of the Lambs. Which would not necessarily be a bad thing. Those are two great movies, Spotlight especially shows how interesting a simple story about reporters investigating a big story can be. But, at the heart of Spotlight, there is also the tension of whether or not this is a story worth breaking. Is it worth taking on the catholic church? And why haven’t people gone after a story this big before? “Bury the Lede” doesn’t really create any of these stakes. There is not an institutional stake for the character. There’s no real tension about the public figure she is beginning to uncover dirt about. And while it does make a go at giving the story personal stakes by making Madison’s brother someone that will be directly affected by her reporting, it never feels like that actually sticks. Sure, her reporting might hurt him, but we never get to actually feel that tension. Perhaps more disappointing than the lack of tension on a character level is the lack of tension on a plot level. In a story that paints itself as a mystery, it’s important that everything comes together. The way a mystery is solved, or in some cases, isn’t solved, is probably the most important part of the story. A lot can be forgiven if, by the end, the story comes together in a satisfying bow. “Bury the Lede” meanders through its plot, huge revelations simply appearing and moving to the next one. There is no sense of urgency, nothing that pulls the story along. And, the main character never does any detective work. All the information is just handed to her. For a genre that should be built on tension, “Bury the Lede” has almost none. Continued below This is a lack of tension that carries itself into the art as well. “Bury the Lede” is a very pretty book. Claire Roe’s art is expressive, her character feel alive on the page, and the colors by Miquel Muerto bring a beautiful texture to the world. The layouts of each page is interesting as well, and the team does a good job keeping a story that is mostly people standing around talking feeling dynamic. However, the story also breezes past. The art is dynamic, but it never feels like it’s given the room to fully breathe. The moments where some sort of tension could have been created are blown by to keep the story moving at a steady clip. The confrontation between Madison and her brother, what feels like was supposed to be the main point of tension in the story, is wrapped up in one page, without even giving Madison a moment to reflect. “Bury the Lede” has a lot going for it. Its premise is interesting, the art is well done, and it has really wonderful representation. But, at a story level, “Bury the Lede” just falls short. It breezes by any tension that might be created and ends up leaving a story that should be really interesting as a pretty bland experience. Should you bury the lede?By burying the lede or skipping over essential points in the introduction, you may make the readers reluctant to keep reading. The term has its root in journalism, but it's now used in all areas of writing. Burying the lede is a rookie mistake, but writers sometimes do it intentionally. Why is it spelled lede?However, “lede” is the journalistic spelling that originated in newsrooms in the mid-20th century. It was created to avoid confusion with “lead,” the metal traditionally used in printing presses. Even though digital printing has largely replaced physical printing, “lede” continues to be used in journalism today. |
