
Antarctic Press/Second Sight Studios 2019
Written by Bradley Golden & George Aguilar
Illustrated by Stan Yak
Coloured by Shannon Smith
Lettered by Hector Negrete
Delve deeper into the history of the Butcher, learning how he obtain these horrific abilities to use electricity as his weapon! Knowledge is power to dispel darkness too, but will it be enough?
If you enjoy, love or can't get enough of horror then you need to be reading this, do yourself a solid because this is all kinds of awesome. We have seen this idea done before but it's not been overdone or done in a while so what we see isn't all that comparable to anything else which is great. The way that this strikes the reader is really nice to see and feel. We keep going into Thomas Derek Lassey's life in ways that you really don't expect and why all of this is done after his death instead of before is anyone's guess but hey where would the fun be if it wasn't happening this way?
I am really enjoying the way that this is being told. With the story & plot development and how we see the sequence of events that unfold the way the do and how that reveals information to the reader is extremely nice to see. The character development we are seeing is interesting as well for while Sarah and her partner don't get that much attention we certainly get a lot of attention on Lassey, not that that's unusual. It does however flesh out the life of a killer who was planning to come back after his execution. With the pacing here, which is solid by the way, we see how the twists and turns come about and how the influence the ebb & flow of the story.
There really is something to seeing a story where two detectives are working, following their instincts and not having their every move explained. I mean they have these skills, they are good at their jobs and so it goes to reason that what they do and how they act/react is attributed to their time on the force. I appreciate that we don't unnecessary explanations that's just the way things should be. Also I am pretty darn impressed with the double ending here. I thought that perhaps the first one was the end of the book, I had actually prepared myself that it was and then, then there was more. You no idea how exciting it makes things.
The work Stan does on the interiors here is utterly fabulous. He has some amazing skills as we see the linework and it's varying weights bring about the attention to detail at this quality and level. His eye for storytelling is phenomenal and I like how we see the perspective how the panels have their composition, that light shining on a hand for instance was bloody marvellous, and how we see depth perception, scale, the page layouts and the sense of size and scope is perfect. Also I have to commend him on the depiction of Lassey in the chair, when it happened and afterwards there is this whole imagination and creativity that is on display here. The colour work here is also exceptionally well done. I love seeing the various hues and tones within the colours utilised to bring us this shading, highlights and shadows. Again the light on the hand wow actually all of that and the page where we see him in the chair in the darkness that's horrifying for a myriad of reasons but the colours throughout continue to highlight the mood, tone and feel of the book.
Folks this is bloody amazing work all around. The imagery is strong, powerful and extremely well rendered and the story, writing and characterisation we see as the book moves forward is beyond what you could hope for. This has earned it's place in the annuls of horror storytelling already and I cannot wait to see how this continues and finally concludes.