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As a prelude to the cinematic release of The Road To Perdition, we take a look at the graphic novel that came first.

The Road to Perdition concerns the flight and pursuit of a hit man in the Depression-era Midwest of the USA. When his work crosses over into his private life it has terrible consequences - leading to the death of his wife and one of his two sons. Sullivan and his surviving son set out on a journey in search of retribution and redemption in a tale which sharply portrays personal honour and the values of debt – to oneself, to family and the price to be paid when a debt is owed to those outside the law.

Max Allan Collins and Richard Piers Rayner's graphic novel involves an Irish mob and a desperate quest for a kind of frontier justice – with the US Midwest lending an ideal setting for what is basically a near modern day Western adventure. In many ways similar to the Japanese comic book Lone Wolf and Cub – an 8,000 page samurai epic from Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima about the journey of a renegade Shogun's assassin and his young son. – Road To Perdition is a redemption road movie on paper.

Art

The look of the book is also essential to its success. Award-winning sometime Hellblazer artist Richard Piers Raynner allegedly spent four years working on the artwork and it shows on the page! Intensely cinematic in it’s look, it comes as little surprise that the book has attracted the attention of Hollywood – with a live action feature starring Tom Hanks hitting the multiplexes any time now.

Historical Private Eye Novel

Hailed as the pioneer of the historical private eye novel genre Collins’ past work includes Flying Blind, which explores the most famous US mystery of the twentieth century, the disappearance of Amelia Earhart. Sometimes referred to as “Mystery’s Renaissance man” he boasts great successes across genres - with comic strips and books, cards, short stories, novels, film and novelisations – oncluding international best-sellers In the Line of Fire, Maverick, Waterworld, Air Force One and Saving Private Ryan already under his belt. He also produced the - immensely popular - True Detective, Stolen Away, Angel in Black, Chicago Confidential and Damned in Paradise. He's been a president of The Private Eye Writers of America – an organisation devoted to private-eye detective fiction - and has won and been nominated for numerous prestigious “Edgar” and “Shamus” awards for both his fiction and non-fiction work.

Collins also created three celebrated contemporary suspense series known as Nolan, Quarry and Mallory (thief, hitman and mystery writer respectively). He has also written four widely praised historical thrillers about real-life leader of the so-called “Untouchables" - Eliot Ness – the man responsible for putting Al Capone behind bars; and is an accomplished writer of short fiction.

Fans believe that Collins’ talent lies in an instinctive ability to rework traditional theories at the same time as he creates new ones convincingly. The accuracy of historical research that goes into his work is also probably a factor.

Road To Big Screen

The original graphic novel about Capone-era crime inspired the makers of the new film version immediately. Based closely on the graphic novel the film version is directed by American Beauty’s director, Sam Mendes, from a screenplay by David Self. It stars two-time Academy Award winner Tom Hanks, better known for his roles in Forrest Gump, Saving Private Ryan or Philadelphia. Here Hanks takes the lead role of ambiguous protagonist Michael Sullivan

Producer Dean Zanuck, received Collins’ novel and having never even seen a graphic novel before, he began flipping through it and was hooked. “I just loved it,” he recalls. “The father and son story had a powerful emotional impact on me, and the illustrations by Richard Piers Rayner provided a great visual of the period. That, combined with the action in the piece, made it very appealing. When I finished it, I said to my wife, ‘I think something special is going to happen with this.’” Father and producer Richard D. Zanuck and Steven Spielberg also felt the novel had amazing potential as a film and went on to base the major production on the book.

Screenplays and Novels

As well as working as an independent filmmaker Collins was creative consultant on the film version of Dick Tracy. Having scripted the comic strip from ’77 to ’93 and written three Tracy novels Collins was more the qualified for the role! Another notable comic credit is the decidedly noir-ish hard-boiled Jazz Age thriller Ms. Tree.

"(A) John Woo kind of American samurai thing..."

Collins has also had the opportunity to rework the film script back into prose, having already written the novelisation of Road To Perdition’s screenplay. He says: “The screenplay is very good and quite faithful. The cast and director and producer are all the best the movie industry has to offer. I do wish I could have written the script. Their take on the story differs from mine slightly - my vision is more violent, wilder, a John Woo kind of American samurai thing...whereas this movie will fall more in the Godfather area...which is a nice area.”

Originally published in 1998 as one of the last graphic novels from the Paradox Press Graphic Mystery line a new edition of the 304 page The Road to Perdition - complete with new cover - is being issued to tie-in with the release of the film of the same name.

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