Double Feature: Freddy Reno Went Missing & Stringer

I paired these two titles together because of the way that they both root a familiar story type in a hyper-specific world and show you the seedy side of that world. Stringer is about a racket stringer for a professional tennis player on the European leg of the pro tour and Freddy Reno Went Missing is about the world of competitive fancy fish breeding. 

One of the great things about Freddy Reno Went Missing is the world that it immerses us in. It takes us to the seedy underbelly of competitive fancy fish breeding. I don’t know if that’s a thing (it isn’t) but I’m immediately invested in this world because of all of the specific details that Don M Patterson lays out: its factions, histories, controversies, and rivalries. Of course this world is also populated with gangsters, spies, crooked cops, tough guys, and insurance claims investigators nicknamed “Possum”.

Freddy’s departure sparks an insurance investigation and that’s when a George Jones lookalike (who insists people can call him “Possum” though they often decline to do so) shows up as the lead character. In a genre of police detectives and PIs, readers can sometimes forget that other types of investigators exist. Hotel detective fiction was once a thing and the insurance investigator is another great way to explore crime fiction because his motivations are different.

There is a tension at play in the cast of caricature, the kind of silliness of the story and the world and the seriousness with which it’s treated. It works in a comedic mode while violence and death occur. The art style lends itself to this tension also. The backgrounds are often photographs altered by filters but the characters are illustrated in this cartoonish style. This tone and art style may not work for everyone.

The titular character is something of an enigma. Everyone seems to know exactly who this character is and none of it is good. Deeper in the story we get Freddy’s backstory and it creates even more facets to ponder. By the end we will even get to hear from him directly and it turns out we hardly knew the man at all.

Freddy Reno Went Missing is called a Yacht Noir. Yacht Rock as a term is a fairly recent invention for a particular style of soft rock in a particular time. Noir as a term was something that came after the period it was initially about. When we think of the soft rock sounds of yacht rock we may not think of the darkness of noir. Yet, sometimes under the glossy facade of yacht rock, darker themes, feelings, and ideas were lurking. The greatest example of this connection is in one of the genre’s more popular and well known songs, “Ride like the Wind” by Christopher Cross:

I was born the son of a lawless man
Always spoke my mind with a gun in my hand
Lived nine lives, gunned down ten
Gonna ride like the wind

And I've got such a long way to go
To make it to the border of Mexico
So, I'll ride like the wind, ride like the wind
Gonna ride like the wind

Here’s Greg Guidry’s “I’m Givin It Up”:

Early in the morning, it's four o'clock
Running like the devil, trying to catch the sun
'Cause I can see in the distance a terrible storm is a-rolling
And I don't wanna be around when it comes

Bill LaBounty “Trail To Your Heart (Sailing Without A Sail)”:

There's a spark
In your touch
When we're dancin'
And the stars
In your eyes
Seem to say
I don't care
Where we go
Take me fast
Take me slo

Ambrosia “Livin’ On My Own”:

Baby, when you left me here,
I was so alone and full of fear
Thought that I would be all right,
But it's hard to last these lonely nights

Ian Thomas Band “Pilot”:

Through the porthole panic stricken
Humanity had been forsaken
The door secured, the cry was distant
But the scratching fingers grew persistent

On the salt flats of Nevada
All those who mattered waited for the word
Oh oh Pilot, woah oh pilot
This paradise is lost forever

Vapor Trails “Night People”:

Your pocket state is a little strange
The choir place where they own an easy babe
Corner house is where he stands
Watching the lady with a razor blade in her hands

Gino Vannelli “Night Walker”:

When it's dark and the night lays me down
When the moon shines the light on the ground
I just run where my thoughts take me to
'cause I can't live in this world
Without love without you
I walk the night
I walk the night

Oh, I dream at night
It must be a madman's rainbow that I'm chasing
'cause when I close my eyes
I feel your sweet sensation

All I’m saying is that you don’t have to squint your eyes and tilt your head too much to see some noir vibes in yacht rock songs. So the idea of a Yacht Noir may seem silly at first but there’s something there.

Freddy Reno surprised me. Self-published comics can be a hit and miss affair. I didn’t know anything about it when I started it and I immediately got pulled into this world. Freddy Reno Went Missing is something of a hidden gem from the world of self-published crime comics. I’m ready for more yacht noirs.

I think I would pair Freddy Reno Reno with John D MacDonald, whose Travis McGee books may scratch that living on the water in a boat itch a little and Joseph Hansen’s Dave Brandstetter novels about a gay insurance investigator.

Freddy Reno Went Missing is available on Global Comix, and in digital and print from Amazon.

Now we move from the seedy side of competitive fish breeding to the seedy side of professional tennis. Stringer by Patrick Kindlon with art by Paul Tucker is published by Image and is available in print and digital.

Tim is a racquet stringer for a professional tennis player. They are on the European leg of a competition tour. His job immediately tells us about him, he isn’t the main guy with a high enough skill level to play professionally. He’s a cog in a bigger machine. On the first page he says “My advice for anyone in this game is stay so small you slide between hassles.” Which is great advice for a coked out racquet stringer. But on the very same page his advice turns to shit when he gets busted by the cops after getting turned in by a guy he just met and smoked with. This tells us more about ol Tim, he like to wax poetic, he thinks he’s smarter than he really is, and he’s kind of a fuck up. In addition to being a stringer, Tim also has a side hustle  selling a bit of coke at each tour stop.

The time period here is important. For the purposes of this story, 1983 is the tail end of the 70’s. Coke, pot, and other drugs are everywhere. AIDS wasn’t being thought of widely yet. Everyone is fucking and snorting. The pro that Tim works for, Billy, is an arrogant, narcissistic, coked out sex monster who is living that 70’s rock & roll lifestyle and partying very hard.

Bumble fuck that he is, Tim catches the attention of some much bigger fish. Suddenly he’s not holding little baggies but a large duffle bag of coke and is tasked with carrying it safely and intact until Vegas. All this natural born fuck up has to do is hold the bag for three tournaments and three customs checks. What could go wrong?

Visually, Stringer does a lot of interesting things with panel layouts and two page spreads that convey the story in unexpected ways. At times it reminded me of Tyler Boss’ 4 Kids Walk Into a Bank (which will definitely be covered at some point in the future). It’s great to see the medium used to a fuller extent in this way. Here’s one random example. The action is all surrounding a match being played. You read across the top of both pages then the bottom of both pages while the match is being played in the middle and the action lines signifying the shots of the ball going back and forth also become the outlines of the frames for the top and bottom strips.

The characters, writing, and milieu are all really well done. You become very immersed in this corner of the world. My only real complaint comes at the end of the story. I think the story has a bit of a flat ending and doesn’t fully commit to the darkness surrounding the story that came before it. It reminds me a little of some old movies that play pretty dark up until the (literal) final reel when a happy(ish) ending is snatched from the jaws of noir defeat. With that said, the ending isn’t necessarily out of line with the “slide between hassles” philosophy laid out in the opening page. Maybe I just have a pitch black (story) heart. This is a pretty minor complaint as there is a lot to love with Stringer. And I do genuinely love it. I think this was my first Patrick Kindlon story but it won’t be my last.