ComiXology Originals/Stout Club
Written by Rafael Scavone
Illustrated by Rafael De Latorre
Coloured by Wesllei Manoel
Lettered by Bernardo Brice
Good Night, Sheriff
After the deadly encounter of the night before, Tobias reaches out to the local Blackfoot Tribe for help. Haunted by his past and the dreams of his missing son, Ross sets off in pursuit of the truth about what Captain Spencer is hiding in the factory.
What an utterly gorgeous book this is. The story is phenomenal and the interior artwork is magnificently rendered and it is another reason why ComiXology is the leader when it comes to digital comics. When looking for something new to read you want it to light up your mind, imagination, creativity and everything else you can imagine and so far what this does so beautifully is that it engages the reader wholly and fully. Hitchcock knew the importance of letting the audience imagine the horror rather than showing it to them was something so bad and squirm worthy that he’d never be able recreate. This does that too as we haven’t seen what stalks the wood taking townsfolk and Native American alike and this is how you let the reader create a creature that’s so horrific that they come back time and again to learn more of what they can only imagine.
Love 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 is magnificent to see and this is thanks to how we see the dialogue, the character interaction as well as how we see them act and react to the situations and circumstances they encounter. The pacing is superb and as it takes us through the pages revealing more and more of the story and the characters involved and it just expands how we see this world.
How we see this being structured and how the layers within the story continue to grow, evolve and strengthen while seeing new ones emerge is rather brilliantly done. The bits with the extra characterisation and seeing the Chief and his tribe helping out the sheriff and Tobi it adds this depth and complexity to the story we wouldn’t see otherwise. How everything works together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is beautifully achieved.
The interiors here are bloody gorgeous! The work has this mood, tone and feel to it that is created beautifully and it has the ability to give the reader the shivers or calm before the storm feelings. It is rare to see such powerful imagery that conveys so much page after page, panel after panel. The linework is sensational and how we see the varying weights and techniques being utilised to create this level of detail work is mind numbing. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a masterful eye for storytelling. The creativity and imagination we see and how backgrounds are utilised to create the depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the story is magnificent. The colour work is bloody brilliant as well. How we see the various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work is done with such aplomb. This shows a master colourist at work too and you really need to see this to understand why I say this.
This is so intelligently written and with such a diverse cast of characters that make for truly memorable characters alongside this amazing level of quality in the artwork and you’ve got something that is in the queue for story of the year.