Night People

Condon (The Enfield Gang Massacre) adapts the 1992 story collection by Gifford (Wild at Heart) into a scabrous, booze- and vengeance-fueled ride on the wild side. Each of the Southern-set tales is drawn by a different artist and features bad men doing bad things and women seeking revenge. In the title piece, ferociously drawn by Brian Level, two ex-con lesbian lovers “ridin’ wild on the lost highway” leave a trail of decapitations in their wake. “The Secret Life of Insects,” drawn by Alexandre Tefenkgi, leans on black comedy, as incestuous brother-and-sister ministers who preach opposing messages (one favors abortion rights, the other is against them) encounter an abortion rights activist with a crossbow. “The Ballad of Easy Earle,” drawn by Artyom Topilin, features an everyman who picks up a gun in a bar fight, hits the wrong target, and runs for it. In the noirish “The Crime of Marble Lesson,” drawn by Marco Finnegan, a resourceful young girl in New Orleans seeks out her deadbeat dad—and finds herself in the crosshairs of a dangerous gang. Some of the heat in Gifford’s prose gets lost in translation, but there’s still plenty of gospel-inflected frenzy and ornate dialogue. Fans of Southern gothic will rejoice. (Mar.)