Vault Comics 2021
Written by Si Spurrier
Illustrated by Nathan Gooden
Coloured by Addison Duke
Lettered by Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou
This Hungry Earth Reddens Under Snowclad Hills.
1899, Yukon Territory. A frozen frontier, bloodied and bruised by the last great Gold Rush. But in the lawless wastes to the North, something whispers in the hindbrains of men, drawing them to a blighted valley, where giant spidertracks mark the snow and impossible guns roar in the night.
To Brokehoof, where gold and blood are mined alike. Now, stumbling towards its haunted forests comes a woman gripped not by greed -- but the snarling rage of a mother in search of her child…
I love reading a book and discovering it’s nothing like you were expecting it to be. Even more so since the main character in this story isn’t whom you’d expect it to be. So right from the get-go Si decides to do what he does best and tell a rip roarin’ story that is chock full of surprises, twists & turns alongside a mystery. It manages to get the reader engaged and involved in the story very quickly and how it’s told is pretty much the perfect approach for that to happen. With Nathan’s and Addison on interiors this is pretty much already a guaranteed hit.
I am a huge fan of 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 we the reader learns information is presented exceptionally well. The character development that we see through the narration, that penmanship and the words used are phenomenal by the way, the character interaction, the dialogue as well as how we see them act and react to the situations and circumstances which they encounter does a marvellous job bringing their personalities to life. The pacing is excellent and as it takes us through the pages revealing more of the story the more we are impressed with whom we see and the optimism is infectious.
How we see this being structured and how the layers within the story begin to emerge and grow is beautifully handled. The layers open up these avenues to be explored and whether they’ll be delved into or not they all add this great depth, dimension and complexity to the story. How we see everything working together to create the story's ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is impeccably achieved.
I’m a fan of Nathan’s work and I love how we see Addison treat the now and the letter writing segments. It has that sepia tone to the letter that lends itself to something that’s passed like looking at an old photograph. The linework is sensational and how we see the varying weights and techniques being utilised to create the detail within the work that we see is amazingly well rendered. The backgrounds really enhance and expand the moments perfectly and they also work within the composition of the panels to bring about the depth perception, sense of scale and that overall sense of size and scope to the story. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a remarkably talented eye for storytelling. We are way up North here and the colours are more muted and yet the various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work is extremely impressive to see. With a more limited colour palette to be able to use this range of tones earns some mad respect from me.
I don’t know what the man and creature are that we see within these pages and who or how he chooses their victims but it doesn’t really matter. Why not you may ask, it's simple really. It’s because knowing they exist causes enough fear that seeing them is that bad omen which means death is to follow and that alone is chilling. Also sometimes less is more and the readers’ own imagination is a very powerful tool indeed. So with some extremely creative writing and strong fierce characterisation alongside these brilliantly rendered interiors and stellar lettering Vault has another bonafide hit on their hands.