Nailbiter, Volume One

"There Will Be Blood"
written by Joshua Williamson
art by Mike Henderson
colors by Adam Guzowski

Nailbiter's a series that both satirizes and capitalizes on our fascination with serial killers.  There's a specificity, ritual, and, above all, celebrity to serial killers.  When that serial killer is also a handsome, charismatic, sly unconventionalist like Edward Warren, how can we look away?

Raleigh:  "Ha.  I knew it!  You're a serial killer fan!  Caught a little bit of the Buckaroo Butcher mania, am I right?"

Finch:  "Not quite."

Raleigh:  "How could you not?" (There Will Be Blood: 17 [Nailbiter #1: 15])

Warren was a media powder-keg:  a serial killer with north of sixty murder victims, multiple counts of kidnapping, torture and indecent exposure, and an unexplainable acquittal.  At first glance he's the most ordinary of serial killers, matching the profile almost perfectly, but Warren shows hints of being not quite the psychopath he at first seemed to be.  One of those hints is Sheriff Shannon Crane, formerly his high-school sweetheart.  Not only does he betray a small soft spot for her, perhaps remnants of their teenage fling, but by all available evidence, he seems to have a great deal of respect for her as well even—perhaps especially—in her antagonism toward him.

It's a sensationalistic but admittedly intriguing premise for a serial killer story:  sixteen different serial killers fitting a range of criminal profiles all hail from the same small Oregon town, Buckaroo.  Their modus operandi are all obsessive particular, frequently fixating on little more than behavioral quirks of their victims.  When FBI agent Eliot Carroll pulls the Warren case and the sordid history of Buckaroo's murderous past becomes apparent, he becomes obsessed with finding the connection between them.  After all, it cannot be a coincidence.

The most pleasing and refreshing surprise, however, is the stellar working chemistry between the local sheriff Crane and Army Intelligence officer (on suspension) Nicholas Finch.  Crane and Finch may sound like a bird-themed cop duo from pulp fiction, but they improve exponentially on the formula.  They have an easy rapport, excellent teamwork, implicit trust, and casual banter that shows a lot of promise for their fledgling friendship.

Crane:  "Listen, I know we just met... ...but you're an idiot!"

Finch:  "And you're a good judge of character."  (40 [#2: 10])

By the time the black-masked, horned, and machete-wielding "butcher" is revealed, the killers are no longer Nailbiter's most compelling characters.  Come for the serial killers, stay for the cops.

The Buckaroo Butchers:

The Book Burner (Norman Woods) burned down libraries with his victims still inside.

The Nailbiter (Edward Charles Warren) kidnapped men and women who chew their fingernails, held them captive, chewed their fingers to the bone, and then killed them.

The Silent Movie Killer (Walter Grant) killed audience members who talked during movies.

The Cross Bones Killer made skull-and-crossbones sculptures with the bones of his victims.

The Terrible Two were a set of brother and sister twins who only killed other twins.

The Blonde was a beautiful woman who cut out the tongues and sewed the lips of men who catcalled at her.

The Gravedigger (Diggins) buried his victims alive.

The Y2K Killer killed as many teenagers as he could before the turn of the century.

The WTF Killer turned his victims into works of art in his "abstract phase."


Collects Nailbiter #1-5

ISBN:  978-1632151124