The Hill man, and uh… oh yes, CP Wilson the Third, bring us issue 4 of Wraith: Welcome to Christmasland: Chapter 3: Fastball: Episode 3: Those Kids Got Bite. It’s a long title, people.
Wraith #4 (IDW Publishing)
Now that we’re in Christmasland proper, shit is yet again moving faster than a loose lady on ecstacy. Faster than a speeding Lemmy. Faster than I can come up with another decent simile to describe how fast it is. Joe Hill is at his best when he’s going at a mile a minute, though he’s not too shabby at the calms between the storms, via dialogue and the ol’ gearing up scenes.
CP Wilson III is quite good. He seems to excel at faces; creepy, creepy faces. There must be something with people with III in their name, because I tend to like their output, be they Mr. Mathers, Menton, or CP Wilson. It really is a shame I can’t elucidate as well upon the works of the many artists I cover. You have to understand, I’m a writer. I have no artistic training, classical or otherwise. So, for now, you’ll have to just take my word for it the art is unsettling, and cool. And check the image below.
Is It Good?
My only issue I have with Joe Hill’s writing, is a sense of arrested development: it always seems like I’m reading the work of a very well edited teenager. The books and the comics are good, but one gets a definite child-like quality from the prose. There is nothing inherently wrong with this, but I don’t know, I just prefer a more adult slant on my comics sometimes. Which, yeah, good fucking luck to me. If I started down this road, where I went into how many comics I read feel like they’re written by teenagers, I would probably end with an article far too long. So long, even I wouldn’t want to read it.
I’m really loving this series, and it’s unlike anything you’ve really seen in horror comics as of late. It’s fun, but has a darkness to it just a shade darker than that found in, say, Locke and Key. Obviously for fans of Joe Hill, I would also recommend this to horror comic fans from all walks. From the dyed-in-the-wool extreme horror nerds, to the classical horror fans, I think there’s a nice little blend to be found here. CP Wilson III’s art gets the job done, and it’s a nice departure from the plethora of werewolf, vampire, zombie fare which seems to dominate the type of comics I love.
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