The Criminal Lawyer‘s Guide to Criminal Law (with pictures!)
Part 1: Crime
Page 1: What is “crime”?
Introduction
NARRATOR
Welcome to The Criminal Lawyer‘s Guide to Criminal Law. In this series, we’re going to explore all kinds of concepts and ideas having to do with crime and punishment.
First, let’s start off with some basics:
Criminal law is about CRIME.
Introducing Average Joe.
AVERAGE JOE (less than thrilled)
That’s pretty goddamn basic.
NARRATOR
But what IS crime, anyway?
Average Joe looks like he knows the answer, then thinks, then shrugs.
(Note: The Criminal Law chapters were each originally posted on Tumblr as a single long page. When the comic got its own website, the chapters were broken into pages for easier reading and commenting.)
These posts in the Criminal Law section have been broken down from their long, vertical-scrolling format as they originally appeared on Tumblr. This should make them somewhat easier to navigate, especially in the longer chapters towards the end.
The art’s pretty sloppy and inconsistent at first. But once I realized people were actually reading it, I did try to be… well, more consistent, anyway.
I wish there was some way to download the comics so I can print them out as a whole. would be so much easier to study. GREAT JOB btw
Glad you like it!
If you want a hard copy, please consider buying the book!
How much of the comic does the book contain? Is it the whole of the criminal law section?
Book 1 is all the Criminal Law stuff, cleaned up and edited and proofed by my publisher and their team of law student interns, and some of the art is improved.
Book 2 (soon, I promise!) will be all the Crim Pro stuff, then Book 3 will be Con Law and all those hot-button issues. After that I might come back to Advanced Crim Pro, or maybe tackle Torts or something. My publisher wants to ultimately have a series covering all the major topics, so there’s a lot of options.
One thing at a time, though.
Great material! I am using is to create a different/better connection with my high school Criminal Justice students. Keep the material coming!
Awesome, thanks! That is exactly the audience I had in mind when I started this.
Feel free to encourage them to ask questions in the comments here, if they want. Most of the people here are courteous and thoughtful, and some of the best stuff happens in the comments. (And I’m pretty sure my publisher does a discount rate for schools with the books, if that’s something you might want to use.)
Thank you so much for the making of these books AND allowing us to view everything in the books on your site!! I have been scouring Amazon in search of exactly this! But since you can’t view the books beforehand I have been hesitant to waste time on buying to be disappointed. I did see another series of illustrated books but they were not as thorough about the criminal justice system.
I am studying CJ w/special in forensics as my bachelor degree. I started in January so I am still new at all of this! My background does not have much to do with criminal justice, but medical. I do know a lot of medical laws so that does give me somewhat of an upper hand in my chosen field.
But, it has been a little tough for me as far as criminal justice laws go in understanding. Since a lot of the textbooks and looking up the actual law are not written in layman’s terms it can be frustrating. I do not have time to sit here and figure it out, since a lot of my classes are only 5 weeks at a time.
I am a very visual learner so seeing what is being talked about is great and helps things stick. These books are a lifesaver!!! I plan on purchasing the books and sharing these books with fellow students most definitely.
Thank you again for sharing your knowledge, making it easy to understand and entertaining to read too!!
Hi I am currently reading your book for a law class. I wanted to reach out because there seems to be no digital version of your book I am visually impaired and use digital copies of the book to make the print large enough for me to read.
My colleges bookstore says there isn’t a digital copy currently so I wanted to reach out and inquire about the possibility of there someday being one made. currently I will be returning my copy to my colleges book store since I can not use it. I hope within the future I will be able to access your book
This website is the digital copy (and it’s free!). Please let me know if you have any accessibility issues with the site.
Thank you for responding
when I try to enlarge I have to do the whole page which makes the image distorted (blurry) and moves the image. the page is also not able to scroll from the bottom. I have to enlarge it to 250% I have purchased the hard copy but being able to get a digital copy as in downloaded so I can use it on my program that can enlarge the print correctly would be the best option. I would even buy the digital copy if possible.
Thank you for responding
Holy bleep! The book is almost $900. :( I’m assuming it’s out of print — have you thought about maybe indie publishing it?
I’m working on it (and a few other things). Didn’t realize the stock would sell out so fast!