Phil Housley
Created by Michael Cherkas and Larry Hancock

PHIL HOUSLEY is the hapless (but broad-shouldered) former FBI agent/gumshoe caught up in a snare of conspiracies and aliens in Secret Messages, the continuation of Cherkas and Larry Hancock's classic Silent Invasion graphic series, an ode to paranoia if there ever was one.

It's 1965, and Union City P.I. Housley, after a burst of success is down on his luck again, living off his long-suffering girlfriend/secretary, dodging an ex-wife, alimony, child support, back rent and the sneaking suspicion someone or something is after him. It all goes back to 1959, when Housley was still with the Bureau, assigned to protect the leading Democratic candidate, and he foiled an assassination attempt by a whackjob reporter, Matt Sinkage, who believed the candidate was part of a conspiracy to allow an alien invasion of earth.

Doncha just hate when that happens?

Anyway, Phil shot and apparently killed Sinkage, but in the ensuing confusion, his body was never found. Phil's haunted by the fact the reporter may still be out there, plotting his revenge. Not to mention the fact he's been having blackouts lately. And he's beginning to think maybe Sinkage wasn't such a whackjob after all. And then he's hired by a woman to find her missing husband, who's been having blackouts himself.

It's all a pretty clever spoof of the Sci-Fi and noir movies of the 50's, and also works pretty well as a crime comic. Sort of like The X-files with tail fins, and a dash of P.I. fare tossed in. And the stylized retro artwork, all broad-shouldered-men and treacherous women, rendered in bold strokes, is a true delight.

And this Canadian gets a kick out of the frequent references to Canuck sports references. The Argos! Hah!

EVIDENCE

• "No office, no car, no phone, no gun. And no booze until i get more cash... I guess it's time to get to work."
  (Phil tries to motivate himself)

UNDER OATH

• "(The Silent Invasion) is one of the most disturbing, and ultimately terrifying, works ever to grace the comics medium ... It is the combination of a straight-forward, serious, but complex narrative and the moody, haunting artwork that makes The Silent Invasion a memorable novel, "Graphic" or otherwise. These big people with little heads lumbering through starkly black and white landscapes touched with occasional ambiguous gray inhabit a nightmare world that is all the more frightening because is is recognizably our own"  
   (Max Allan Collins, from his introduction to Volume 2 of The Silent Invasion)

COMIC BOOKS

• SECRET MESSAGES
  (2001-02, NBM Publishing)
  5 issues
  Written by Michael Cherkas and Larry Hancock
  Art by Michael Cherkas

• "The Silent Invasion Abductions 1" (May 2001)
• "The Silent Invasion Abductions 2" (August 2001)
• "The Silent Invasion Abductions 3" (November 2002)
• "The Silent Invasion Abductions 4" (February 2002)
• "The Silent Invasion Abductions 5" (May 2002)

RELATED LINKS

• Secret Messages
  Michael Cherkas and Larry Hancock's own snazzy site, plugging their many fine graphics ventures.
  .
• NBM Publishing
  Secret Messages publisher, who bill themselves as "America's oldest publisher of graphic novels." They're also about to re-release of the first volume of cartoonist Rick Geary's series, "A Treasury of Victorian Murder,". which includes the books "Jack The Ripper", "The Borden Tragedy", "The Fatal Bullet" and "The Mystery ofMary Rogers".

Thanks, Joe.

Associate Member