The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log

7 Psychopaths issue 1

Fabien Vehlmann & Sean Phillips

Boom Studios

Published by Boom but originally published in Europe as part of an series of albums all concerned with teams of 7 people in some battle or other, 7 Psychopaths shows it’s Euro roots very well – clever ideas, dialogue heavy, that sort of thing. But the addition of Sean Philips’ artwork gives the comic a very Vertigo-esque feel that makes it a strange yet satisfying read.

Granted, it’s not the most original of ideas; the concept of assassinating Hitler during the darkest days of WWII using a hand-picked group of soldiers, crooks and spys – in fact I’m surprised no-one (not least the publisher) has thrown the Inglorious Basterds /Valkyrie comparisons around with alacrity.

But 7 Psychopaths takes this unoriginal idea and puts an original(ish) spin on it – making the assassin team the 7 psychopaths of the title. As it is we see Special Operations Executive Colonel Thompson, recently returned to work after his own little breakdown, fed the audacious plan by German Jewish Professor Goldschmidt, who proposes that he himself becomes the first of the 7 psychopaths.

The reasoning Goldschmidt puts forward is great: It had already been rejected by Thompson’s superiors who pointed out that killing Hitler was impossible, and more to the point had already been tried some 30 times. But Goldschmidt postulates that because everyone rational believes killing Hitler to be the impossible mission it has rendered the man practically invincible, because, as he says…..

“The most tightly locked door in the universe is the one we don’t even try to open”

But, Goldschmidt continues, choose 7 killers who are crazy who can succeed simply because they have no concept of the “impossible” nature of the mission. It’s an interesting spin on the whole idea and, in Goldschmidt and Thompson, writer Fabien Vehlmann has two very different, obviously damaged and intriguing leads. I wouldn’t be that surprised to find Thompson himself becomming one of the 7. Perhaps my favourite moment of the whole comic comes in this first meeting, as Thompson opens the door to Goldschmidt’s room only to discover him a willing patient with his very own garden view:

(Great character work by Sean Phillips, expressive, great body language, making the writer’s job of filling in all the details so very easy. From 7 Psychopaths issue 1, published by Boom)

According to the cover 7 Psychopaths is just 3 issues long and, given that this first issue merely sets the idea up and finds 5 of the 7 potential assasins, there’s going to have to be an awful lot of action to even get them all together and into Germany.

I only picked it up in passing at an all too rare trip to my not too local comic shop (most of my reading these days comes via publishers and the FPI webstore – I miss comic shopping with all the joys of browsing and perusing the latest issues). And I picked it up purely on the interesting concept of seeing a European written comic, drawn by a very familiar Brit artist coming from a US publisher.

As usual, my rare foray into comics rather than graphic novels left me frustrated at the brevity of the material and the speed it passed by, but the actual story itself, coupled with Philips’ art was a good, promising start to an interesting, if unoriginal idea for a tale. I may not be around for the remaining two issues (it really takes something very, very special to make me venture out to the comic shop oin a monthly trip) but I’m looking forward to reading this in collected form (a trade paperback collection is due late this summer from Boom).

7 Psychopaths #1 is out now, issue 2 is out later this month. And the collection – at less than the cost of two of the separate issues – is out in August. And here’s where the big problem with 7 Psychopaths is blatantly obvious – I’m assuming it was published as a single album in Europe originally and in soliciting it for August already Boom have managed to prove that it’s rather ridiculous to print it as three separate and very expensive comics. So although the whole thing comes recommended, it’s definitely one to wait for the collection on.