NOTE: This is a parallel review in which we have two reviewers looking at the same comic. The other review is by Xaviar Xerexes.

During the 1940s, when pulps were at their height, the concept of the hardboiled detective (usually a private eye but occasionally a police investigator) was ingrained in the public imagination. Since that time, the atmosphere, the language, and the characters have been evoked in pastiche and parody.

Will Eisner’s John Law by Gary Chaloner (whose current strips can be found here, and whose main site, with cast info and extras, is here) is one of the few modern detective comics to focus so heavily on that mode, at least in style, using the stark grays of the best film noirs. Though scripted and drawn by Gary Chaloner, the character himself was created by the late great Will Eisner.

The game is afoot.

— Sherlock Holmes

There's just one more question I'd like to ask you.

— Columbo

And I would have gotten away with it, too, if it hadn't been for those nosy kids and their mangy dog!

— innumerable Scooby-Doo villains

Forget about making a hundred, forget about the victim, forget about the suspect and focus on the only thing that can't lie: the evidence.

— Gil Grissom, CSI

O photoprocessing machine, I command you to reveal to me that which is hidden!

— Bee

Like most good ideas, mysteries and detective stories have many ancestors, but they didn't really get to take a place in entertainment until the Industrial Revolution. It's not hard to see why. The underlying message behind the traditional mystery—and the traditional detective story, its most famous subgenre—is always the same. That message: our world may seem confusing, but patience, pluck, and especially reason can lay its secrets bare, punish the guilty, and reveal the monsters as aged men in latex or clockwork springs.

[nemesis] is the story of a very normal police detective in a world of super-powered defenders – assigned to solve the murder of their world's greatest hero. Equal parts super-hero parody and noir detective story, it is quite unique on the web. Its creator, Greg Holkan, also joined Eric Burns in the fantasy webcomic Gossamer Commons and although he's letting go of the artistic reins, he retains input into the plotting. Holkan is an interesting mystery himself to unravel, and this interview gives the clues needed.

This is a REview of Femme Noir. Comixpedia first reviewed Christopher Mill's webcomic Femme Noir in October 2003.

When I read the first strip in Femme Noir's latest storyline, I half expected the characters to begin saying "jeepers" and such things. I wasn't disappointed. Fortunately though, the offenders don't last very long.

NOTE: This is a parallel review in which we have two reviewers looking at the same comic. The other review is by Andrew Leal.

John Law is a character, originally created by Will Eisner in the 1940s, whom he ultimately did not actually publish. Instead he repurposed the work he did for this character into stories for his more well-known comic, The Spirit. Despite some claims to the contrary, the full-fledged character of John Law only appeared in print when Eclipse Comics published a one-shot book in 1983 titled John Law, Detective #1.

In this month's Essence of... Ping Teo takes aim at mysteries.

Detective, suspense, parlor game, crime, noir, police procedural… these are all different ways to slice the mystery genre. But how to organize the Mystery WEBCOMICS? Alphabetically by title? By author? By sub-genre? Or perhaps semi-randomly, as the whim takes me? Yep. That'll do.

The theme this month is mystery webcomics. And for the first time since I took this gig...

...well, I have no freaking clue what to write. It's like they said "this month, the theme is finbotz comics," and I'd smile and nod and sit down in front of the word processor.

This week at Modern Humor Authority, Kristofer Straub takes on Mysteries.

You may have noticed that last week, Zampzon and Daku, hosts of the webcomics podcast "Digital Strips," were trying their darndest to snag an interview with Welton Colbert. Well, they finally got a hold of the old coot. The following comic rendition of the interview that took place was written by Estrada and Zampzon, and illustrated by Zampzon and Estrada.