Dicks #1: Winter Special

Avatar Press
Writer: Garth Ennis
Art: John McCrea

BW, 32 pgs w/ ads
$4.75 CAN / $3.50 US

It's all about dicks
by Chad Boudreau

Before Preacher and before Hitman there was Dicks, a story in which two private investigators from Belfast cursed and caroused their way to and through crime scenes to solve mysteries. The characters, Dougie and Ivor, who are the titular Dicks, remain Garth Ennis' self-professed favorite characters he has ever written or created-- "the ongoing saga of two idiots from Belfast, by two idiots from Belfast".

The one "idiot" is Garth Ennis, who officially made his name in mainstream comics working with DC Comics on books like The Demon, Hellblazer, Preacher and Hitman. His work on each of these was like nothing being published at DC at that time, a real eye-opener for the publisher as well as readers as to what kinds of storytelling boundaries could be pushed in the mainstream comics medium. With Preacher, Ennis blew the doors wide open with his story of a Catholic preacher, his girlfriend and a foul-mouthed Irish vampire on a journey to find God and kick his holy ass. Once again, Ennis created something completely original, something unlike anything being published at the time; a story that was as creative and intelligent as it was violent and depraved. Preacher remains to this day one of the greatest stories ever published by Vertigo Comics.

These days, Ennis has been spending most of his time writing comics for Marvel. He's imbued Punisher with his trademark panache for violence, and he gave Thor a royal trashing in Thor: Vikings. He played around in the DCU a bit too, taking The Authority into his foul-mouthed territory with Kev and More Kev. All these tales, though, are but watered-down versions of Ennis. For pure, unadulterated Ennis you need to look no further than Preacher, and if you want to go back even further to Ennis' actual roots, you need to pick up Dicks.

On Dicks, Ennis is joined by the second "idiot, John McCrea, who partnered with Ennis on Hitman and The Demon. Both Ennis and McCrea are from Belfast, Ireland. One can imagine them sharing pints at the pubs of their youth, drinking, carousing, cursing England, getting into fights and laughing their way through it all-- even if this isn't necessarily true. You can imagine it because Ennis and McCrea continue to wear their Ireland pride on their sleeves, filling their comics with proud and noble ruffians.

In Dicks #1: Winter Special, Dougie and Ivor investigate a string of murders involving former Loyalist and Republican strong arms. The astounding thing about this case is that the victims have been stripped to the very bones while in the bathroom. The only clue appears to be shite covered walls.

It's been a long time since a comic made me laugh and cringe at the same time-- since Preacher if the truth be told. I got the same reaction reading this one-shot, though, a story in which the killer turns out to be a giant, lumpy turd possessed by the spirit of the baddest badass that ever joined the NRA. It's all brought to detailed, messy life by John McCrea. I can almost hear the mad cackling that was surely emanating from McCrea as he created these images. I suspect Ennis had himself a few good giggles too while writing the plot.

Dougie and Ivor first appeared and began to take shape in Troubled Souls, a story first serialized in the British anthology Crisis back in 1989, which makes it one of the earliest professional works of Ennis and McCrea. Dougie and Ivor really came into their own in the 1990 sequel called For a Few Troubles More. The first actual Dicks series didn't arrive until 1996. In 2002, that series was brought back into print with new material in a collected volume from Avatar Press called Bigger Dicks. Dicks 2 followed; a new self-contained story, and now this Dicks winter gift.

There's no self-importance in Dicks; no political correctness; no self-awareness. Dicks is full throttle humour that is certain to offend everyone to some degree, created by the two guys that can get away with such a story because this is what they do best.

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