The Fade Out Deluxe Edition HC by Ed Brubaker, Art by Sean Phillips, Elizabeth Breitweiser

Take a trip back in time to Hollywood during the days of Communist blackballing, the war with Hitler, and sleeping your way to the top.  As this writer tries to figure out who killed the young woman he loved, he steps on a lot of other people's feet and almost doesn't stay alive...

Image Comics allowed me to read this graphic novel for review (thank you).  It is being published today.

Everybody drank too much in those days.  Women had to grant sexual favors to get starring roles.  The women did what they were told or they didn't get any work on the films.  But it didn't mean they liked it.  When he woke up in a place he didn't recognize, he was hungover and didn't remember most of the night.  When he finds his girl strangled to death in the living room, he runs.  And then he waits to see who finds her and what they say.  A fixer has been in.  It's reported as a suicide, no mention of murder.  He can't let it go.

Poking around is dangerous and he gets warned off.  This story might have had a different outcome if he hadn't been in the war himself and came back mentally injured.  As it was, he survives but not without cost.

This is fiction but everything discussed in the story is based on fact.  That was a very unpleasant time in Hollywood and people got hurt or blackballed all the time.  The bottom line is would you sell part of your soul so you have a good job?  Most did.  And it's still happening today in different ways.  While it's not a pleasant story, it is realistic.