Scout Comics 2018
Created & Written by Richard Rivera
Created & Illustrated by Dwayne Biddix
Coloured by Liezl Buenaventura
Lettered by Jaymes Reed
Grace and her Mom struggle to regain a sense of normalcy, walking the fine line between honesty and keeping family secrets. Lena, Grace's Nana, becomes involved in researching the man behind the kidnapping. Glyph emerges from the shadows to move forward with his evil plan by corrupting someone at the school. More is revealed about the night of the abduction with terrifying consequences.
This is definitely not a kids book so don’t make the mistake of sharing this with a little one. It is very much an adult oriented book and so far so good even though the star of this is Grace and as cute and adorable as she is she has that secret weapon in Stabbity Bunny. More than a stuffed animal he’s a protector and he’ll protect Grace with his life and trust me after last issue you don’t wanna see him in action! I’m so glad Scout picked this up because it’s a hell of a story and it’s incredibly well done and it needs to have a huge mainstream audience.
So while the story is very adult oriented the interior artwork has a more all-ages feel to it. What Dwayne brings to this however is pretty amazing in my eyes. He really uses the panels to their fullest here and seeing the backgrounds from the pattern of the wallpaper to cafeteria and the playground he is able to expand the scope of the story. Mind you I want to see him use them in every panel but we’ll work on that later lol he’s got plenty of issues still to go. The use of page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels shows off a solid eye for storytelling. I really like the emotion and feeling he’s able to bring here.
I do like how Richard is telling this story. The pacing is important and we get to see just the right mix of family secrets and seeing who is out there trying for Grace. So the fact that we’re seeing some duality in the storytelling is handled very well and while I’m not sure who this old man really is he’s frightening nonetheless and I gotta tell ya it’s very effective when we see him and the bus stop was more telling than you’d think. Also go Nana because she’s a hoot! Who doesn’t love a motorcycle grandma? Plus she’s got the knowledge and secrets of her daughter and granddaughter so she’s a major player in this, I hope.
Oh also there’s Ronnie and he’s Grace’s friend at school. Probably her best friend and if truth be told his mom’s got it right and he’s got that grade school crush on her. He is using slang a little older than a second grader should be hey that’s alright it’s cute and endearing and he’s kind of the perfect “straight” man for Grace. His role shouldn’t be discounted because his interaction with Grace, and Stabbity who I think did it (what you ask well read the book), on the playground and later when we see him at home yeah either he has a secret of his own or more likely this was because of Grace.
This is one of the most creative and cute books out there and it’s got that horror element down pat. In a world where horror encompasses so much this one is in a class all it’s own as there is no sub-genre for a book like this, sure supernatural might be right but with the characters and how it looks heck even Goosebumps can’t compete.