Comics round up: The Mammoth Book of Best Crime Comics ed Paul Gravett

Secret Agent X-9, the Interpol agent Commissario Spada, Neil Gaiman, Alan Moore, Ed McBain: they're all represented in the impeccably dark and hardcore line-up for The Mammoth Book of Best Crime Comics, an enthralling stalk through the mean streets of comics from the pulps to the present. Indecently entertaining, and lethally good value for the price, too, like all the Mammoth collections.

Incognegro by Mat Johnson (Vertigo £12.99)

Shorter, but with an equally noirish vibe (no pun intended) is Incognegro, Mat Johnson's tale of a black investigative journalist undercover in the racist South of the 1920s. The mixture of teasing mystery and social comment works well, immeasurably assisted by Warren Pleece's ice-cool black-and-white artwork, but it somehow all seems an oddly slight use of such explosive material.

Modesty Blaise: Green Cobra (Titan £11.99)

Also in high-contrast black-and-white, Peter O'Donnell's mysterious and gorgeous Modesty Blaise returns in Green Cobra, Titan's latest collection of the 1970s daily strips. Blaise intrigues and fights her way through the usual exotic variety of settings, from a paradise valley to the lair of an Arthurian cult. Not the greatest in the series, perhaps, but excellent, ass-kicking escapism all the same.

The Tale of One Bad Rat by Bryan Talbot (Cape £12.99)

Meanwhile, a welcome return to print for Bryan Talbot's excellent The Tale of One Bad Rat, now taking its rightful place as a hardback in Cape's Graphic Classics line. This is uncompromising stuff, the story of an adolescent girl who flees her sexually abusive father for homelessness in London and a new life in the Lake District. Beautiful artwork and finely observed dialogue, not to mention a creditable stab at a lost Beatrix Potter story, make this a justly celebrated work.