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The first issue in this series knocked my socks off and it was one of the most unnerving horror comics I’ve ever read. The things Troy Nixey can do with fish/eyeball/mouth flesh is insane. The question remains, can it keep up its perfect score this week in its second issue?
So what’s it about?
The official summary reads:
London’s murderer has been executed . . . but they caught the wrong man. Desperate for answers, a group of Londoners holds a seance to contact the supposed killer, but his story of a young girl born of the sea who has arrived in London with a terrible curse only brings them more questions.
Why does this matter?
Mike Mignola co-writes with Nixey on this series so you know it’s going to have strong macabre vibes. It helps that it’s set in old England, but there’s a strange story being revealed here as this issue explains where Jenny Finn came from.
Fine, you have my attention. What’s good about it?
Her face is freaking me out.
This issue picks up where the last one left off as the protagonist looks on a man hanging after the local mob beat him to death. To get to the bottom of what’s going on with the town and with Finn, a seance is in order! Things get very weird very fast and Nixey introduces some strange looking characters and reveals a ghost in a unique looking way. By the end of the issue, more horrors are enacted and the creepy fish that shout “Doom” is yet to be fully explained, but a lot of light is shed on Finn’s origin to the town.
That takes place via an interesting flashback to her first appearance. There’s a lot of nautical iconography in this series and that adds up as it’s revealed her origin came from the sea. I’ll say no more to avoid spoilers, but there’s an interesting connection made between Finn and venereal disease.
Nixey’s art continues to be excellent although the plot makes for a slightly stuffy plot progression since most of it takes place in a single room for the seance. If creatures with many eyeballs, tentacles, and the like creep you out you will be freaked out by this book. The characters themselves are interesting to look at with rounded faces that are almost putty like. The seance patrons are rather macabre in their own right, including the lady leading it who has a freakish black mask. If you want a unique and scary costume for next Halloween you know where to look!
This is giving me some Babadook vibes.
It can’t be perfect can it?
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The seance scene pumps the breaks on the plot progression and takes a bit too long to get going. The flashback is tops, but then the issue closes on four pages that, again, are quite slow. I’d wager there’s a tad bit too much decompression going on, especially with its minor reveals as to who Jenny Finn is, but if you can wade through that you’re in for another good issue.
Is It Good?
Reading this will make you feel tingling on the back of your neck. This issue reveals much about Jenny Finn and pushes the strange up a notch on the weirdness scale.
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