DC Black Label/Hill House Comics 2021
Written by Rio Youers
Illustrated by Tom Fowler
Coloured by Bill Crabtree
Lettered by Andworld Design
It took Cal and Arlene one day on Brody Island to piss off a homicidal biker gang-and to find the magical axe so memorably wielded by June Branch one year ago. But what else have Cal and Arlene come to Brody to do? And now that you mention it…where is June Branch?
I’m both surprised and not surprised that so many people know about the axe and what it can do. Collectors who have similar objects are believable in their search for it, I mean we’ve seen what lengths collectors will go to for their collections. Still a lot of folks seem to know the particulars about what happened last year and this makes the reader think, you become engaged in the story and your minds creativity and imagination are taken off page and this means you become even more invested in the book. Rio does a magnificent job in drawing you into the story and keeping your interest and intrigue factors rising. Plus it doesn’t hurt that Cal and Arlene are there under whatever pretense they are, I like the mystery behind them, have that shark's head and are building up quite the collection of heads.
I’m very much enjoying the way that this is being told. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented exceptionally well. The character development that we see through the dialogue, the character interaction as well as how we see them act and react to the situations and circumstances which they encounter does wonders in continuing to flesh out the personalities that we see. The pacing is excellent and as it takes us through the pages revealing more of the story the more involved we get with the whole axe business and it’s wonderful to see.
I’m enjoying how we see this being structured and how the layers within the story continue to emerge, grow, evolve and strengthen. I also like how we see the layers opening up new avenues to be explored. Rooster’s head taking a trip on its own for instance is absolutely hysterical in every way that is right and wrong all rolled into one. The kind of depth, dimension and complexity that we see added to the story is fantastic. How we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how we see it move the story forward are impeccably handled.
The interiors here have a great classic comic book style to them. It keeps the gore and splatter down to a minimum and makes the talking heads, sans bodies, less horrific and more simply odd and creepy. I kind of want to be freaked out though but that’s who I am. That we see backgrounds being utilised as we do to enhance and expand the moments as well as how they work within the composition of the panels to bring out the depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the story is well achieved. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show an extremely talented eye for storytelling. The various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow works show a great understanding of how colour works.
I was a little worried that this would turn into a slasher book, sequels in horror franchises either kill it or become cliché and so far with the background story and the idea that Juney seems to know about what and why things happened the way they did last year ties the two seasons together extremely well. So far this is killing it and I’m kind of excited to see how this keeps playing out. Plus Rooster’s head is out there and I’m dying to know if he gets where he needs to go. With some strong writing, interesting characterisation and some solid interiors the fun is just getting started and we need some more heads in that fridge!