Zenescope Entertainment 2014
Written by Pat Shand
Illustrated by Manuel Preitano
Coloured by Slamet Mujiono
Lettered by Jim Campbell
After successfully completing a ritual that bonded her to an Elemental spirit, Marian is back in control of her magic. However, will it be enough when she and Robyn are tasked with stopping Katie Graves, a rock star who might be possessed by a demon?
Every now and then a series needs a one of story so the creative team can take a break, plot out the larger story and just bring us something fun in the meanwhile. Pat certainly does that here. What better way to do that then focus on a band and it’s lead singer who is now possessed by something? We open seeing the Novela Kiss bus barreling down the highway towards its next gig. Inside one of the band members is accosted, woken from his sleep, warned about going after her babies, and she’s full on Supernatural demon type at the time.
Cornell Terrance the guitarist for Novela Kiss has come to Nottingham Investigations because what happened on the bus. Naturally I mean who else is he going to see when the ad clearly states they deal with the off-kilter kind of stuff. Turns out the girls are huge fans of the band and it’s little things like that that make them more personable. Not everything in their life has to be about the bad guys right? So learning more about stuff like one of the favorite bands well that just helps flesh out their characters more.
So where’s the first place Robyn goes to to find some answers. Well now that Phil is dead it’s Banshee’s bar and she’s there up to her old ways. This time though a natural conclusion for her would be talk to skinwalkers. I love that no one there is nice or helpful after all she’s kind of like a bull in china shop in this place. She’s not one for subtlety or niceties though maybe if she learned how she’d get better results.
On a side note I do like that keep seeing bits and pieces of her time with her own therapist. She really does have anger issues and needs to find a way to keep them under control and stay the good guy she is.
The way that the girls discover what is plaguing Cornell and Katie, the lead singer, well that’s just fun stuff. It’s kind of like the right place wrong time works out in the end stuff that seems to sum up Robyn’s life so well. While I’d love to see her become better and better at the actual detective work her stumbling around in the dark as it were is more entertaining. Though she has come a long way since issue one in working cases so with time i’m sure things will keep improving the way they are.
Now i’m not sure exactly what they faced was but who cares it’s creepy, gross and all kinds of fantastic. Plus when it was licking into Marian’s ear and depositing something it inferred that it’s with the Cabal. So even the innocuous one of these folks are still causing trouble and that just makes them even more frightening.
I liked the artwork here it’s well done, expressive and the facial expressions and the bad guy are well executed. Though I would like to see more backgrounds, it’s almost like cheating or not knowing how to get them in, possibly not enough time or experience to know how and that kind of stinks. The panels that do have them are much more exciting and make the book that much stronger.
Still overall Robyn really is one of Zenescope’s stronger titles and it continues to show us that they are putting out some top notch, quality, stuff!