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Pine and Merrimac #[nn]
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freePine and Merrimac #1 introduced readers to Linnea and Parker Kent, an original husband-and-wife detective duo who represent a deliberate subversion of the lone, hardboiled-detective archetype that has dominated crime comics since the genre's inception — replacing urban alienation with a loving relationship and a small-town setting. The series marks the first appearances of all its principal characters and the fictional town of Jamesport, making it the foundational issue for any future revisiting of this corner of the BOOM! Studios universe. Writer Kyle Starks's tonal departure from his comedic work — toward a grounded, escalating crime-mystery with horror undercurrents — demonstrated the creative range of a multiple-Eisner-nominated author in a way that drew comparisons from critics to acclaimed creator-owned works like Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips's Reckless. As BOOM! Studios' first January 2024 launch title, it also underscored the publisher's sustained investment in original, creator-driven crime and mystery fiction.
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We Buy Collections ▸History
Kyle Starks — a three-time Eisner-nominated creator from Southern Indiana, best known for his lengthy tenure on Oni Press's Rick and Morty comic and DC's Peacemaker Tries Hard! — brought this project to BOOM! Studios as his first original series for the publisher. He collaborated with Spanish-born artist Fran Galán, who had entered the American market only in 2019 (with Cullen Bunn's Knights Temporal at Aftershock) and subsequently worked on high-profile Marvel titles including The Amazing Spider-Man and Carnage, as well as co-creating the Eisner-nominated 2023 anthology Creepshow with Starks. BOOM! Studios Acquisitions Editor Jon Moisan shepherded the series, and letterer Pat Brosseau (Batman: The Knight) completed the core creative team. The five-issue limited series ran from January through approximately May 2024, with the collected trade paperback released in December 2024.
Trivia · 8 facts
- First appearance of Linnea Kent (former homicide detective turned private investigator) and Parker Kent (her husband, a former professional MMA fighter), the co-leads of the series.
- First appearance of Jamesport, the fictional small town where the Pine & Merrimac detective agency is located.
- Written by Eisner-nominated Kyle Starks and illustrated by co-creator Fran Galán, with lettering by Pat Brosseau; published by BOOM! Studios on January 3, 2024.
- Issue #1 shipped with multiple cover editions: a main cover by Galán, plus variants by Erica Henderson (The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl), Jae Lee (The Dark Tower), and at least one additional variant — sources list either Annie Wu (Black Canary) or Tula Lotay (Barnstormers) depending on which press release is referenced (see flagged).
- A second printing of issue #1 was produced, confirming sustained retailer and reader demand.
- The series ran for five issues (January–spring 2024) as a complete, self-contained limited series.
- A trade paperback collecting all five issues was published by BOOM! Studios in December 2024 (on-sale date listed as December 11–17, 2024).
- Represents Kyle Starks's first original creator-owned series at BOOM! Studios and a marked tonal shift away from his established comedic work toward crime-mystery with horror elements; Fran Galán's American debut was as recently as 2019.
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