Kelly Green: The Complete Collection, purchased via Lulu.com and a lot less pricey than copies of the earlier edition published by Classic Comics Press. A collection of all five graphic novels produced by veteran comic strip creators Leonard Starr and Stan Drake for the French publisher Dargaud, a chance to work on some more adult material for the European comics market. Of these stories, the fifth, "The Comic Con Heist" was never before published in English unlike the previous four, which were colored and printed in the US back in the 1980s. Starr and Drake, veterans behind strips like "Mary Perkins On Stage" and "The Heart of Juliet Jones" respectively had high hopes for Kelly Green but the French comic market had it's own problems at the time...you can tell Drake welcomed the chance to draw characters in more adult settings than were in the drama strips in the newspapers, where the artwork had been reduced in size, which was one of the reasons Starr and Drake had become disgruntled with working on soapy strips.
The story involves Kelly Green, a police detective's wife who became a widow when her husband walked into a drug den his fellow officers were about to bust into, and since he was smarter than that Kelly believes one of his superiors set him up, gave him secret orders, withheld that the door he'd be knocking on was for a drug lab full of criminals primed to shoot - --- possibly because he'd gotten subtle pressure to join in on graft from bent fellow officers and turned it down. She attempts to cope with the loss of her husband. Needing work, a trio of reformed ex-criminals her husband had helped (Jimmy, the ex-burglar, Meathooks, the ex-strong arm, and Spats, the ex-swindler) decide to become guardian angels, and a job offer made to her via them by some shady guy, steers her towards a new career as a professional go-between, the intermediary in delivery ransom for insurance companies looking to recover stolen goods, or between blackmail victims and blackmailers, and so on. Her first job also leads to her uncovering the circumstances that led to her husband. In a quote from an interview in the introduction, Starr didn't want to do another comic about a female secret agent or judo chopping PI because that had been done, and her husband's partner points out that just because she took some judo and karate lessons doesn't mean that will help her against some of the unpleasant types she might run into in her new line of work, like anyone who might be lurking around the strip club she had to go undercover at:
The volumes that were published in the 1980s had some decent color work, but this volume reprints them in stark black and white, sourced directly whenever possible. The plots tread familiar ground, but are handled well enough. “One, Two, Three, …Die!” sees Kelly dealing with a kidnapped dog and a dysfunctional wealthy family. “The Million Dollar Hit” has Kelly involved in the world of oil tycoons, politicians, con artists, hit men and wilderness survival in Alaska.
In “The Blood Tapes,” the last story that was made available to English speakers, Kelly has been hired to act as a go between in the ransom of the master tapes of a recently murdered rock musician's last album, but winds up working with the connected casino boss who has invested the ransom money, a man who in his demeanor if not looks reminds her of her late husband. In the final story, “The Comic Con Heist,” Kelly works to recover a set of original comic strip art while a ruthless lone wolf detective becomes a suspect in the murders of three youths he'd roughed up after catching them trying to steal original comic art at the San Diego Comic Con - all were found on the beach dressed up in comic character costumes...
