Maze Agency

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The Maze Agency is a mystery comic book series created by Mike W. Barr and first published in 1988. It revolves around a pair of detectives and their adventures solving puzzling murders. It is currently near the end of a four issue limited series run by independent comic company IDW Publishing.

The Maze Agency is notable for being one of the few mystery comic books to "play fair" with the reader - i.e. giving out sufficient clues for the reader to solve the mystery. However, in an interview in the February, 2004, issue of Back Issue magazine, creator and writer Mike W. Barr admitted that "Some of the Maze stories, frankly, are not fair-play whodunits to the reader, in that the story is possibly too complex for the reader to solve." He cited as comparison an anecdote wherein the two creators of Ellery Queen were giving an interview, and one said "Ellery Queen is always fair to the reader," to which the other replied, "Ellery Queen is always fair to the reader if the reader is a genius." As Mike W. Barr is a fan of mystery series Ellery Queen, the comic has much the same feel, sharing qualities such as the occasional "challenge to the reader" to solve the mystery, and an incorrect solution being offered by a character before the real answer is revealed. The Maze Agency has been published under four different companies over the years, and has been restarted three times.

[edit] Characters

Jennifer Mays is a smart, tough, and sexy ex-CIA agent who runs the private detective agency for which the comic is named. Gabriel Webb is one of the few people to see her softer, tender side.

Gabriel Webb is a true-crime writer who longs to create more cerebral stories than his sensationalist editors like. He's a little scatterbrained and easily distracted, but has a first-rate deductive mind.

Detective Roberta Bliss is a NYPD homicide detective of Puerto Rican descent whom Webb and Mays often deal with in solving cases. She is sometimes annoyed by their tendency to complicate cases, but knows that they have the ability to crack murders that she'd have a hard time solving alone.

Ashley Swift is the head of the rival Swift Detective Agency, and Jennifer's former boss. She's a good detective, though not as good as Jen and Gabe, but her arrogance has a habit of rubbing her ex-employee the wrong way.