The Seasons has been a treat of a series since it launched in January. Its visual sense of whimsy and existential dread is palpable, all the while an eclectic group of sisters, each with a demeanor and name marked for a season of the year, makes for a fun dynamic. In four issues, a circus has come to town that wants to do terrible things, and seems to have done something to Spring’s sister, Summer. Now it’s time to unpack the fallout.
The Seasons #5 opens with an extreme close-up of Spring’s eyes as she looks at the circus tents, somehow getting bigger. She wants to get inside to save her sister, but soon the opening widens and a creepy clown in the dark speaks to her. Paul Azaceta will bring shivers down your spine at the look of this clown.
Soon, people come barreling out of the tent, all transfixed on themselves as they look into hand mirrors. It seems Summer is lost to the mirror and its promises.
The opening page.
Credit: Image Comics
From there, the story takes on a kind of Alice in Wonderland quality, with Spring tumbling through doors, conversing with her fish (who responds in kind!), and uncovering new levels of depravity. It’s a nightmare fairytale experience for Spring, and it goes from weird to weirder. We get the whole experience of promises of your wildest dreams, even if it’s not real at all. There’s a message there, though, and it’s still time to unpack it as the series continues.
Azaceta has great fun with layout once again; in one instance, the bottom of the page is sucking Spring down into a drain, only for her to pop out at the top of the next page from the same drain. The clowns continue to be haunting, especially when juxtaposed with normal people, or in the cliffhanger, a dull color palette prevails, except for the ringleader’s haunting mask.
The Seasons #5 continues the series’ spellbinding descent into magical horror, pairing imaginative page design with unsettling encounters that echo real emotional trauma. Though some answers remain frustratingly out of reach, the journey through Spring’s personal hell is immersive, eerie, and beautifully bizarre.
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