Thanks to Netgalley & the publishers for my review copy! 'Where the Body Was' is a fun, engaging & quick read for all murder mystery lovers. If you are hesitant with reading graphic novels or comics, this is a good one to try out! It's got all the things I love in a whodunit caper; a list of characters (with pictures!), a map and a really engaging plotline. I'm looking forwards to reading this on a physical copy, because my computer had issues with formatting, and I prefer to read graphic novels in paper format so I can go back and forth between pages. Highly suggest this for all mystery lovers, graphic novel fans & for those interested in trying out something new mystery-wise!

My thanks to both NetGalley and the publisher Image Comics for an advanced copy of this new crime graphic novel that tells about what lurks behind the closed doors of what seems to be a quiet little neighborhood.

Even the nicest of neighborhoods have secrets. Years ago police shut down a small road by my parents house, had all sorts of activity, and yet nothing was ever reported, nor were the couple who owned the place ever seen. A couple of years ago I was parking my car outside my house, when a cop car rolled up and the officer asked me, "Did you hear any sounds of, uh, violence recently?" Sound of violence. That threw me. Actually it was the uhh that really confused me. I said no, and the cop drove off. Another mystery in my small town. Which is one of the many reasons why I enjoyed this slice of life story about the happenings of a small town in the 1980's. And a body that suddenly disappears. Where the Body was is a graphic novel by the team of Ed Brubaker, writer and Sean and Jacob Phillips on art dealing with crime, love, being someone you want to be, and looking back and letting go.

The book begins with a map of the area, pointing out houses, the 7/11 and the tent location of a local homeless person. This really sets the mood as is seems like Anytown USA. The book is told in flashbacks from some of the characters in out modern day, looking back at a summer that for some was magical, for others not so much. A young Vietnamese girl who dresses as a superhero while patrolling her neighborhood, and her friend a homeless vet, who is getting treatment for his violent actions. Two young kids, one in love, the other trying to find herself, but who share a love of drugs and breaking into houses, A doctor and his wayward wife. And a man with a badge who tries to keep the peace. Into this comes a private detective looking for a missing daughter, whose appearance knocks the delicate balance of the neighborhood for a loop, and soon the sounds of violence are heard.

Brubaker and Phillips, father and son, really have a wonderful collaboration. This is not a typical story for them, a crime story, but one where the crime is secondary to the characters. Brubaker's gift as a writer is the ability to tell a story cleanly and concisely, developing characters that readers care what happens to. Be it eternal happiness or a cold end in a grave. The use of flashbacks allows the characters to share much about themselves, telling why they were doing dumb things, or acting the way they were. The story works really well telling all these little stories and bringing them together for an ending that is surprising, and for some of the characters then end of the best times of their lives. The art is as usual from Phillips excellent. The characters are all unique, all perfectly rendered with rich backgrounds and lots of props to make one think yup this is the 80's. Phillips makes the art fit the scenes, bright with new love, dark with anger, and sometimes cruel. A really great graphic novel.

Recommended for fans of this team. This work seems different, not the usual crime story, but a real look at people just trying to get by and be happy, be it afternoon encounters, breaking into houses, or trying to patrol a neighborhood in a mask. A great gift for one's self with for an after the holidays read.

Thanks to NetGalley for a courtesy copy in exchange for an honest review,

This graphic novel from the powerful Brubaker/Phillips team is a self-contained story that takes place in a small town. The cast includes a doctor and his spouse who are in a struggling marriage, a girl struggling with her identity, drug addicted kids and a detective, among other. There are various twists and turns in the story that connect the characters, but the main plot point that the others pivot off is a budding romance between two drug-addicted teenagers and how they spiral out of control.

In short, I see this story as the output of putting Strangers Things, a murder mystery and pulp fiction (the genre not the movie) into a blender. Plus, the art was fantastic for the genre.

5 stars because it was fun. Read it!

Probably 3.5-3.75 star rating would be most accurate... This is the 1st I've read of the Brubaker/Phillips team, but I wouldn't mind reading their work again. The cover art didn't really look like a comic/graphic novel ....but it is, & it is an 'adult' one (due to sex content.) It features a story/mystery about a particular place/event in time that happened in the neighborhood, told through various characters in a neighborhood....sometimes in 'interview' form, & you see each player's version of the events overlapping/meshing with the other's telling of their role. This is a great way to see it all happening at the same time. I liked the 'Afterword' at the end, explaining how this story came about. I liked the art work & the use of the color schemes, during different scenes. It was an entertaining, satisfying, quick read.
I received a free digital ARC from Image Comics via NetGalley in return for reading it & offering my own fair/honest review.

This comic had so much potential into being a much better, much longer graphic novel and so there’s a disappointment in it being so short but I did really love the switching POVs, the comic style and I’m a sucker for a whodunnit.

Thanks NetGalley for an ARC!

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.

Where the Body Was is one of the weirder Ed Brubaker & Sean Phillips collaborations. At times, it feels like a Slice of Life anthology depicting the mundane experiences of a cast of characters that just happen to live on the same street. There is an illicit romance between a detective and a bored housewife; there is a young girl obsessed with superheroes, a mentally ill war veteran, and a messed up young couple squatting in an empty house.

Bouncing around different points of view, this is one of Brubaker's funnier stories and one that keeps its secrets to the very end.

Phillips, as always, does a superb job on the art. It is one of the most explicit books he has drawn (not one to be read on public transport).

If you're expecting something like Criminal or Reckless, then this is not like those series. It's a bit lighter in tone and much more concerned with romantic love and the strange things it does to our souls.

As a stand-alone graphic novel this is well worth your time. It is slickly written and romps along at a great pace. Phillips's are is on point and is some of his best work in terms of capturing character's emotions.

I love everything that Brubaker and Philips do, and since Reckless they have been on a hot streak with these longer form books. This one keeps the run going in great form.

Everything you would expect from the pair - crisp art and storytelling, plus a real sense of place. Much like Reckless, this one is set in the recent(ish) past so there's a theme of nostalgia and memory surrounding it. However, it is more rooted in teenage days than Reckless, which leans more into the PI/Parker vibe.

It is essentially a murder mystery with a twist, and the story threatens to unravel under the weight of all the different plotlines, but somehow Brubaker keeps it all straight. The cast of characters feels much larger than usual, but they all come into their own and we see their lives play out with a neat trick of having them narrate some of the events from an unspecified point in the future. It adds weight to the story, as they look back on their earlier selves with a mixture of fondness, regret, and some earned wisdom with age. Those that make it out alive, anyway.

Slightly different from their previous stuff, but still unmistakably them. If you're already a fan, their books are pretty much buy on sight, and this one doesn't disappoint. Thanks to Image for the ARC.

Before I begin, we need a slow clap for Jacob Philips here. Because, if you ask me (which I know you technically didn't, but this is my review, so...) the colors stole the show in this standalone graphic mystery. Thumbs up for the artwork overall, which hit the perfect balance between gritty and bawdy—but the inking really helped orient the story in the 1980s, with the opening few panels' sepia tones emphasizing the narrative's pre-WW2 set-up.

For as short as it is, Where the Body Was is plotted incredibly well. It was immediately obvious that the title would play out on several levels—not just alluding to where in the neighborhood or where in the narrative arc a body would be found, but also in an overlapping sense of which characters were where they maybe shouldn't be. I also appreciated how the first half of the novel flipped my expectation of a whodunit? by making me wonder about the victim's identity, rather than the assailant's. This really speaks to Brubaker's ability to write flawed characters because I could legitimately see several different characters as a target for murder. (Raise your hand if you also went through a series of, "Oh, you're gonna get killed...no, wait, you're gonna get killed...ope, or it could be you..." thoughts.)

I always hate to do this, especially when there is so much that is good-slash-great about a book, but I have to admit that I was disappointed with the ending. Maybe it was supposed to be clever or ironic, but it really fell flat to me because it came across as lazy, as if a resolution whose tone and complexity matched that of the narrative wasn't worth the creators' time.

Overall, I would recommend this title to my graphic novel-loving pals. Five stars for the artwork, extra bonus stars for the coloring, and 3.5 stars for narrative execution. If my math is correct (yes of course my calculator has a button for 'extra bonus stars'), that averages out to a solid four-star read.

WOW! I think this is gonna be known as one of the best books by Brubaker and Phillips. Not so much a crime story, but a romance. It is hard to explain without giving anything away, which I don't want to do. Beautifuly written and drawn. The story reminds of a true crime documentary in style, which I don't remember ever being done in comics. This is a story full of nostalgia, growing up, love triangles... and also a dead body to spice things up

Great stuff! The story unfolds from multiple points of view as the reader is introduced to the various characters that live in the neighborhood where a man is found murdered in the street. Who is he? Who killed him? Everybody has their own version of events: There's a teenage runaway, a private detective, a belligerent cop, a lonely housewife, a strange kid who seems to be everywhere, and the nosy neighbor lady who sees everything that goes on.

The kind of excellence (art and story) that you expect from the team of Brubaker & Phillips.

This wasn't for me. I found it very predictable and dragged out. However I do think other readers would enjoy it more. I did however enjoy reading a crime themed graphic novel!

Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips are known as the dynamic duo. Unfortunately, this title fell flat for me. I found it to be quite gratuitous. It took me out of the story at times. I did find the character Lila quite interesting though. Solid artwork by Phillips ...

This team always get me hyped for a book. Love criminal, but everything they do is either great, amazing, or atleast good.

I think sadly where the body was falls into the last for me.

It's really just a slice of life of this small little town with some pieces of shit people, but also multilayered people since no one is just "good" or "bad". I think the idea of this book is good but the characters, all of them, fall a little flat in the end. I didn't get attached to a single one which kind of surprise me. I did enjoy the overall plot but it also felt a bit aimless. This book wasn't as strong as their previous work. The art though, as always, remained pretty strong throughout.

A 3 out of 5. Thanks Netgalley for the advance review!

BRUBAKER AND PHILLIPS HAVE DONE IT AGAIN! The comics dream team are back together with another thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat. I sped through this one, I couldn't get enough of it. THe writing was phenomenal, and the artwork was incredible.

An engaging crime mystery in the adult (very adult) graphic novel space. I liked the varying perspectives to reveal the story, but it felt like it wrapped up rather quickly.

Thanks to Netgalley & the publishers for my review copy! 'Where the Body Was' is a fun, engaging & quick read for all murder mystery lovers. If you are hesitant with reading graphic novels or comics, this is a good one to try out! It's got all the things I love in a whodunit caper; a list of characters (with pictures!), a map and a really engaging plotline. I'm looking forwards to reading this on a physical copy, because my computer had issues with formatting, and I prefer to read graphic novels in paper format so I can go back and forth between pages. Highly suggest this for all mystery lovers, graphic novel fans & for those interested in trying out something new mystery-wise!

An OK one off story from the team of Brubaker and Phillips. It's about some neighbors on a block somewhere in Southern California in the 80's. Everyone has their secrets. The neighbors who are having an affair, the kid who plays at being a super hero, the teenagers on drugs. There's no main character and I think that may hurt the book. It's one of those things that's about the journey more than the ending. To me, it lacked focus though and it's the rare story by this team that's not 5 stars.

I loved this quick little whodunit!!! Honestly, I don't put much expectation on a short graphic novel but this was extremely enjoyable. We got to meet each character and get individual breakdowns on their backgrounds without extra explanation or information. Each character was built up so you didn't know who did it and could reasonably believe any one of them had done it. Great twists, with connected storylines and plenty of scandal.

I admit that I only picked up this novel because of the author and artist, but I am very glad that I did! It was a super intriguing and engaging story about life in general, and how different people on vastly different paths all interact with one another. The characters were incredibly diverse and each one was flawed in a unique, realistic way. The overarching plot - who killed character X - was brilliantly interlaced with "current day" interviews of the other characters, each of whom ended up in different parts of the world, doing their own things. The ending was believable and satisfactory and the artwork, as usual, was incredible!

This graphic novel is a tale of love and mystery set in the suburbs. Told from several points of view, all of these stories will collide one summer. With so many different opinions, which one is the truth? You will want to get your hands on a copy of Where The Body Was. This original graphic novel hardcover is set to arrive in comic stores on Wednesday, December 6, 2023 and in bookstores on Tuesday, December 12, 2023.