According to Groth, Nightmare Alley is the longest graphic work by Spain, who more typically has focused on graphic short stories. It could probably benefit by being extended a bit more. Some of the sequences have more words per panel than is necessary: these are people who live by patter, after all, so you wanna see 'em using this to the fullest. (A scene where Carlisle bamboozles a hostile southern sheriff is particularly flat since Spain the scripter places it all in some zeppelin-sized word balloons.) Too, the book's denouement depicting our protagonist's descent into alcoholism could have been more effectively protracted. Stanton is an abusive murdering slimewad, after all, and you wanna see his degradation convincingly portrayed, especially since his slide into geekhood is set up in the first few pages of the story.

That noted, Spain's version manages to beautifully recreate Gresham's world in all its squalid glory: even down to the dated psychological premises used to bolster the book's main actors (like many crime novelists of his day who strived to delve into their characters' sociopathy - Robert Bloch comes immediately to mind - Gresham worshipped at the altar of Freud). And for an artist whose early work was notable for its Marxist fervor, Spain proves deft at capturing the period's low & high society. (For those missing the Trashman years, we even get a speech from a rail-ridin' socialist near book's end.)

Gresham's novel is presently available in an omnibus edition (Horace McCoy's Crime Novels: American Noir of the 1930's and 40's), while the movie version doesn't even appear to be available on DVD or tape. In that light, Spain's work is even more noteworthy: an effective reconstruction of American pulp disillusionment that still reads true.