By Mike Badilla

Jim Thompson's 'The Killer Inside Me' is based on an old book of the same name. It's now a comic. It's supposed to be a glimpse into the mind of a serial killer long before we knew about men like Dahmer and Gacy and all those family favorites. This is issue 3 of 5, and I haven't read 1 or 2, so this may not be the most succinct review of the story so far, but I sure do like serial killers, so lets dive in.

We begin with two men, Lou (the lead in this story) and Howard. They're going back and forth discussing the death of someone. It's clear that at this point in the story, Lou is already leading people down the wrong paths in order to get away with his crimes. What little I know of the story is that back in the '50s or so this small town sheriff who everyone thinks is kinda slow but really nice suddenly snaps and becomes a serial killer, although no one suspects it could be him. Anyway, the man behind the desk is basically closing the case at this point, telling Lou to just take it easy. Lou heads home and we find that his father, a doctor, was a very religious man. Lou decides to look at some of his fathers books and pulls a bible. Flipping through it, a picture of a nude woman falls out.

It was his fathers housekeeper, which leads Lou to a flashback about him being young and play fighting the woman, Helene. She won't play back, but tells Lou he can just hit her, that all the big boys like to do stuff like that. This eventually leads to his father firing Helene over the incident. Flashback over, Lou burns the picture. He then receives a phone call from Howard explaining that they've caught the man behind the crimes (still not knowing it's Lou). It turns out they picked up a young kid from around town that gets into trouble a lot. The story goes into some money the kid had access to, marked bills, one was Lous but they don't know that, this would be more fleshed out if the last two issues were available.

Lou goes in to question the kid in the cell, alone. They talk and Lou kills the kid and hangs him up with a belt, making it look like a suicide. He leaves the cell and tells the other officers that the kid had confessed and was pretty broken up about it, and they should leave him alone for an hour or so. Lou then heads home to his wife.

We'll stop there, only to leave you, the reader, some surprises. Yes I know, this would've been a much better review if I had read the last two issues. That's on me. I chose this book not knowing it was a five part series. Here's my take; the art was very good. Not good in the sense of it's super detailed or anything like that, just good in that it is very fitting to the time period, it looks like how comics looked back then, which I always enjoy when reading stories like this. The story is great, even with me not knowing the last few issues, but then I am always a fan of a story like this. I'm going to go back and read the last few and hopefully pick this book up if it's released in a trade. If you like noir or serial killer stories based back in the day, check this book out.

Score: 4/5

The Killer Inside Me #3
Writer: Devin Faraci
Artist: Vic Malhotra
Publisher: IDW Publishing