Spencer and Locke

2021 appears to have started almost as well as 2020 ended, with the UK once again being sentenced to lockdown. For me, that's been a return to juggling every aspect of adulting life, exacerbated by the schools being sent home.

So, how I found time to read in this first week is beyond me.

Fortunately, time for both reading and this general writing has managed to be found, along with a quickly made decision of what to read (although, I am regretting FF: the End so I could have titled the post 'beginning at the end').

The first read of this new year (in case the title hasn't given it away) was Spencer and Locke, a four issue mini-series by David Pepose and Jorge Santiago Jr coming out of Action Lab. This series centres around Locke, a seemingly hard boiled detective seeking the killers of his childhood crush and to protect her child with the help of his longtime friend and partner in crime fighting, Spencer.

Of course, the one caveat is that Spencer is a giant walking, talking panther that only Locke can see and hear, with everyone else simply seeing a child's toy.

This has been a series which has held my interest since almost as long as it has been available, and only now (well, my birthday a month ago) have I been able to acquire it. However, much like with Mister Miracle last year, I found myself concerned about how it would read and that the hype surrounding Spencer and Locke had oversold the comic to me. Unfortunately, this indeed seemed to be the case by the time I finished the first issue as, while I found it to be good, Spencer and Locke didn't come across as the awesome comic I had been sold on, moving a lot slower than I expected.

That said, on the evening i read this first issue i might confess i was wiped out and, in hindsight, I wonder if my sense of exhaustion affected my enjoyment. I say this because when I got around to the other three issues of Spencer and Locke over the following couple of nights I found myself seriously addicted to this story right up until the end.

With Spencer and Locke, I thought David Pepose told a superbly engrossing and seriously interesting story. Throughout all the issues I felt this real noir vibe that continued to remind me of the Rian Johnson film Brick as I continued to read. This feeling was only compound thanks to the fight scenes which look brutal and feel like every inch noir tropes as I understand them.

Of course, the art was a big part of that Noir feel and I really thought Jorge Santiago Jr and colourist Jasen Smith delivered that in spades. The aforementioned fight scenes in particular, almost the entire book had this dark yet vibrant quality and, above all, a really visceral look about it as well as certain scenes which just felt absolutely in place in a police procedural story.

I think the thing which hooked me the most though was the titular characters and their connection to one another. I remember always hearing how Spencer and Locke is the 'What if Calvin and Hobbes became police detectives' comic, and this certainly feels the case thanks to the C&H-esque pages (one in each issue). However, these pages in particular, which showed Spencer and Locke's backstory, to be seriously compelling as it showed Locke to be a severely damaged character. 

This made me wonder if Spencer was simply a coping mechanism for Locke's seriously troubled childhood and by being Locke's companion it provides Locke with some sort of good or even innocent memory from an otherwise crappy time. This would certainly track given Spencer's disappearance at Ramona's (the story's 'femme fatale') arrival as her possible entanglement in Locke's life could have been far too damaging that it eradicated any sense of innocence.

Alternatively, Spencer could simply be a crutch for Locke to hang all his guilt onto by blaming Spencer of all of Locke's actions.

As a result, I had so many theories about this series by the end of issue 2 that all of this was simply the dream of a young Locke or that Locke wasn't a cop but some sort of vigilante.

Of course, I was also left with a fair few questions about this series, particularly in the sense of Sophie's daughter, Hero. However, delving into them may cause the release of spoilers which I dont wanna do and so I won't go into detail. Besides, eventually I was able to, at the very least, find ways around them and so wonder if I was getting confused over nothing.

So, in the end, despite a bumpy start, I'm glad to discover the the hype oversold me nothing and that Spencer and Locke was a truly captivating and engrossing comic series. In fact, I just realised, looking back, that it is a series where nothing can be taken at face value, which I guess is the mark of many a good noir story. I do think that I'll have to read it again to see if the first issue comes across better, but that's not something which I feel will be a chore.

And nor would picking up the sequel I suspect.