Wicked Things
Created & Written by John Allison
Art by Max Sarin
Colors by Whitney Cogar
BOOM! Box, 2021
Wicked Things is a series of comic books and a resultant graphic novel following Charlotte "Lottie" Grote and Claire Little, characters that first appeared in Allison's webcomics Scary Go Round (Charlotte) and Bad Machinery (Claire). As with Giant Days (story by John Allison, art by Max Sarin), this series is a move away form the SF/fantasy themes present in Allison's earlier works.
The story begins sometime after the end of the Bad Machinery stories, and most of the gang have stopped solving mysteries, moving on to college and other boring adult things. Lottie has not given up on the mysteries, although she's about to head off to university herself, and is looking with some angst at the probable end of her mystery-solving days... when she is unexpectedly nominated for Teen Detective of the Year (ages 16-18). Claire accompanies her to the awards ceremony, which they are disappointed to find populated by a bunch of snotty teens.
Suddenly, and for reasons unclear, Lottie is framed for a violent assault on Kendo Miyamoto, the greatest detective in Japan and probably the world. While he is in a coma and Lottie is under house arrest, she is given the opportunity to help the police investigate the case... under close supervision. Along the way, she will solve some unrelated cases and get on the nerves of many police officers.
This is a perfectly acceptable story, with perfectly acceptable art. However, it is not Allison's art, and while it is his story, it doesn't have the magical and science fictional elements that made his earlier works so much fun. It's just, with apologies to the author, a second rate series of short mysteries with witty comments and art that totally does not fit the style previously established for the characters.
I don't mean to sound too critical; it's worth taking a look at, and if you like the art, and you like snarky teenagers (which, admittedly, who doesn't?) it might be the comic series for you. The mysteries are short and Lottie's methods rather dependent on a Deus appearing in the machina, but they are neither boring nor predictable, and the snark is good.
This book collects only the first six issues of the comic book, and ends on a significant cliffhanger. To the best of my knowledge the series is currently not under further development, but I would not be surprised to see it picked up again in the future.