The Fade Out is a twelve-issue Comic Book miniseries by Ed Brubaker and Sean Philips, published by Image Comics. The story is a straight up Film Noir Hollywood California Crime Fiction story set only a few years after World War II.
Charles Parish is a screenwriter for a Hollywood studio. A master of his craft back in the day, Parish has been reduced to a shell of his former self by the horrors of the war and he hasn't been able to write anything since. His only way to succeed is to let Gil Mason, his mentor turned blacklisted pariah, ghost-write for him. Parish maintains a barely tolerable existence as a front for Mason's screenplays while drinking the days away, nursing a more than visible crush on starlet Val Sommers, and maintaining a sexually tense friendship with Gil's wife Melba.
Then, one morning, Parish wakes in a bathtub in a studio-owned house with a massive hangover, and finds Val dead from strangulation in the living room. Knowing how bad it looks, Parish quietly escapes with no one the wiser, only to find that the studio covers up the murder as a suicide and quickly replaces her with a brand new actress. Motivated by his guilt over his actions and an obsession with knowing what happened the night before, Parish enlists Gil to help him solve this mystery of sex crimes, cover-ups, and blacklisting.
Not to be confused with the trope Fade Out.
The Fade Out contains examples of:
- The Alcoholic: Both Charles and Gil are absolute drunks.
- All for Nothing: None of the efforts of the protagonists amounts to anything and all of them more or less end up in the exact position they were earlier. Except for Gil, Gil is dead.
- Anyone Can Die: Val, Kamp, and Gil are all dead by book's end.
- Armored Closet Gay: Tyler Graves is gay which in 40's Hollywood must be covered up at all costs. The studio sets him up with Maya as a publicity stunt.
- Batman Gambit:
- Gil kind of pulls one off on Thursby. He sends Thursby a blackmail letter saying he knows what wrong Thursby has done before knowing exactly what it is, then tails Thursby's people when they go to cover their tracks, leading to the discovery of Thursby's dirty secrets. While Charles points out it was a really reckless plan, it manages to work.
- Charles named Gil to get himself out of trouble as well as provide work for Gil after the event.
- Berserk Button: Besmirching Val's name seems to be one for Charles.
- Big Bad: Drake Miller with the caveat our heroes never actually confront him and he never gets any sort of comeuppance save losing his job.
- Book Ends: The book begins and ends with Charles thinking about the phantom planes that were cited over LA after Pearl Harbor (and didn't exist).
- Brick Joke: Victor Thursby entering Maya's dressing room for a Casting Couch Questionable Consent encounter is stopped by her Shameful Strip. He says that "she looks like a child" and is repulsed into leaving her alone. Later, we discover this is set up for a dirty joke. When she reveals it's because she has shaved her privates specifically because her agent told her to in order to avoid this. Charles finds it hilarious.
- The Caligula: Everybody in Hollywood but especially Old Man Kamp.
- The Casanova: Earl Rath, the studio's leading man, has slept with countless women, including Val.
- Casting Couch: Something that is constantly referenced as part of the life of a starlet in Hollywood. Women are expected to sleep with stars, executives, directors, and producers to get ahead. Maya actually shaves herself because she knows it will repulse the head of the studio when he comes to sleep with her.
- Chekhov's Gunman: One of the few memories Charles can remember right off the bat of the night Val died was him getting a blowjob from some random dancer in a closet. Her name is Tina and she has information that's crucial to figuring out what happened to Val.
- Dirty Cop: Drake Miller is really an FBI agent posing as a Hollywood producer to uproot commies in the film business, but gets so wrapped up in the sex and drugs of the industry that he loses all moral fiber and ends up killing Val in a fit of rage, kickstarting the whole plot.
- Dirty Old Man: Old Man Kamp. He molested the Krazy Kids, of which Val was a member.
- Dogged Nice Guy: Gender-swapped with Dottie who legitimately likes Charles and sets up an ambiguous date with him while working a PR stunt with Maya and Tyler. When Charles and Maya hit it off and eventually start a relationship, Dottie is clearly upset.
- Downer Ending: Charles finally figures out what happened to Val but can't do anything to avenge or fix the issue. Studios will continue to cover up rapes and murders. The Feds will continue to ruin the careers of innocent people thanks to the Red Scare. Oh, and Gil's dead. Have a nice day.
- The Dragon: Phil Brodsky serves as this to Victor Thursby, the co-founder of Victory Street Pictures. He deals with all of their problems as The Fixer and is also just their brute force enforcer.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Phil Brodsky is disgusted by Drake Miller despite the fact that he's a murderer, homophobe, and The Fixer.
- Film Noir: In a career filled with noir-influenced books, this is Brubaker's most noirish.
- The Fixer: Phil Brodsky's job is to make problems for the studio go away like covering up murders or beating up a gay actor's lover.
- Gilded Cage: Charles will almost certainly end up marrying Melba and continuing his affair with Maya but will remain trapped in the awful Hollywood system with nothing having really changed in his life.
- Guilt Complex: Charles feels a lot of guilt for a lot of different things that drives his actions through the story: his actions during the war, fingering Gil as a commie (even though Gil told him to), whatever happened that led to Val's death, his relationship with Maya potentially being a Replacement Goldfish for Val and eventually sleeping with Gil's wife both before and after his death even though it's pretty well stated it was an open marriage.
- The Heavy: Brodsky operates as The Dragon for the studio and generally cleans up their messes. He spends the entire story intimidating people, acting as hired muscle and is ultimately the one who reveals what happened to Val.
- Hidden Depths: Ed Brubaker reminds several Historical Domain Characters had these.
- Clark Gable volunteered to fight in WW2 despite being asked by the President not to.
- Dashiell Hammett worked to raise money for victims of the Hollywood Blacklist.
- The fictional Phil Brodsky also reveals that he's a fan of Don Quixote and actually understands Cervantes' satire about excessive idealism better than most readers who see him someone to be admired. Later, he expresses genuine disgust at the system he supports.
- History Repeats: The ending implies that absolutely nothing has changed whatsoever for all of the characters.
- Hollywood Hype Machine: Shown to be as much a star maker as making a quality film.
- Horrible Hollywood: As seedly and corrupt as it gets.
- Instantly Proven Wrong: Phil Brodsky shares the story of how he attempted to intimidate Tyler into giving up his gay relationship by beating his lover to a bloody pulp, explaining to Gil how it will teach him a lesson. Instead, it results in Tyler wrecking his car in a possible Driven to Suicide.
- Ironic Hell: Charles is trapped in this as he knows who is actually responsible for Val's murder but can't do a damn thing about it. He also has a woman he loves him that is his dead best friend's wife.
- Karma Houdini: Drake Miller is assigned to Broadway where there's no communists to persecute or sexual perks to extort but otherwise unpunished for murdering Val.
- Kavorka Man: Charles is a very nebbish, insecure man who nonetheless has sex with a lot of women through the story.
- Morality Pet: Gil pushes Charles to continue investigating whenever the latter just wants to drop it and move on.
- "Not So Different" Remark: Brodsky explains that he actually knew the entire time that Charles had been at Val's place when she was murdered and that it was Drake Miller who murdered her. He wanted to kill Drake for it but was unable to do so because Drake was an FBI agent. Charles is disgusted to realize that Brodsky and he aren't that different and both wanted to do something but were unable to do so.
- Pass Fail: Maya is actually Mexican despite being a blonde blue-eyed girl and is hiding that fact from the rest of the world.
- Polyamory: Gil and Melba have this kind of agreement in their marriage. Except, clearly, Gil never expected Melba to actually sleep around on him. Least of all with his best friend, Charles.
- Publicity Stunt Relationship: Actor Tyler Graves is rumored to be gay. The studio, wanting to turn up-and-coming actress Maya Silver into a proper star, decides to kill two birds with one stone and sets the two up for a PR relationship.
- Reassigned to Antarctica: Drake Miller's only punishment is to be taken out of Hollywood and sent to Broadway instead, which means that he has lost all of his power and the perks of his position but is still a free man as well as murderer.
- Red Herring: Charles suspects both Earl Rath and/or Old Man Kamp killed Val. Neither had anything to do with it.
- Red Scare: The Hollywood Blacklist is a major theme of the book with one of the characters being blacklisted for his politics while another is under pressure by the government for his associations. The villain turns out to be an FBI spy that killed a starlet for refusing to submit to him or serve as a spy.
- Replacement Goldfish: Maya serves as this for Val both as the character Val was playing and as Charles' object of sexual desire.
- The Reveal: Val and the other Krazy Kids were raped by studio heads and the whole thing was covered up. Also, Drake Miller is an FBI agent looking to bust commies. Also, he killed Val.
