Creator: Clifford Thompson
Cleaver Magazine, 2025-ongoing
Since early 2025, Connecticus Diggs, Cultural Detective has appeared quarterly in Cleaver Magazine, the non-profit online literary magazine known for publishing contemporary fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, flash prose, dramatic monologues, craft essays, and book reviews. Written and illustrated by Clifford Thompson, the series feels unlike anything else currently circulating in comics, occupying a space somewhere between literary essay, visual meditation, and detective fiction.
The titular character, Connecticus Diggs is a detective of sorts, taking clients in a setup familiar to anyone who has read noir (or as Mr Thompson calls his genre, “psuedo-noir”). A troubled visitor enters through the front door, finds Diggs seated at his desk, and presents a problem in need of solving. But while the staging resembles classic private-eye fiction, Diggs himself is interested in an entirely different kind of investigation. His methods are not rooted in surveillance, interrogations, or criminal procedure, but in culture. Literature, film, music, religion, philosophy, history, and memory all become tools in his arsenal. Diggs is less concerned with solving crimes than with uncovering meaning.
Episode One, The Rapture, serves as the perfect introduction to this unusual framework. Diggs’ first client is Ivory Coles, a woman seeking help after her lover has left her. Yet her problem is not heartbreak in the conventional sense. She does not ask Diggs to track the man down, nor does she seem especially interested in winning him back. Her concern lies in the space he leaves behind. Men come and go, she explains, but what troubles her is the interim, the empty period between relationships, and the fear that there may be nothing of herself left when they leave. What she needs is not another lover, but something to occupy and define her in the meantime: a hobby, an obsession, an activity, or perhaps a way of being that belongs solely to her.
It is an immediately compelling premise, and one that establishes Connecticus Diggs, Cultural Detective as something far removed from conventional crime or horror comics. There is mystery here, certainly, but it is the mystery of identity, desire, loneliness, and self-construction. Diggs approaches Ivory’s dilemma through reflection and conversation, leading the story into an unexpectedly rich discussion touching on Ayn Rand, the Bible, religion, and individualism. Mr Thompson allows these ideas to unfold naturally through dialogue, never making the comic feel academic or overburdened. Philosophical text can be didactic, or preachy, or proselytizing, but this instead is intimate and conversational.
Despite its quiet and introspective nature, The Rapture still manages to land an unexpected twist by the end, one that subtly reframes what came before. Diggs may not solve mysteries in the traditional detective-fiction sense, but Mr Thompson still understands how to deliver narrative surprise.
Visually, the comic is equally distinctive. Mr Thompson’s artwork is refreshingly unconcerned with realism or polish in the conventional comic-book sense. It evokes the energy of children’s artwork, though far more deliberate and controlled. The figures feel expressive rather than anatomically precise, prioritizing mood and gesture over sleek detail. The colors resemble crayon or colored pencil, with textured, hand-worked surfaces that give the pages warmth and personality. Yet beneath that looseness is a clear command of composition, color balance, and space. Every page feels carefully arranged without ever appearing stiff.
That combination of literary enquiry, emotional honesty, and playful visual experimentation makes Connecticus Diggs, Cultural Detective feel genuinely original. The Rapture is brief, but it leaves a strong impression, introducing a protagonist whose investigations are as much about culture as they are about people. In a medium often dominated by action, spectacle, or genre convention, Mr Thompson offers something quieter and stranger: a detective comic where the clues are found in books, belief systems, and the hidden spaces people carry within themselves.
For more on this intriguing title, please see https://www.cleavermagazine.com/connecticus-by-clifford-thompson/
And for more on the intriguing Mr Thompson himself, please see this essay: https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/clifford-thompson-art-show-tell-painting-time-mystery