ANN BY THE BED BY EMILY CARROLL

Kelly Sheehan and Daniel Elkin have a leaf through the pages of the new Emily Carroll comic, Ann By The Bed, discovering along the way a uniquely bone-chilling read. Carroll it seems has finally unlocked the door to making comics genuinely ...creepy.

Sheehan: Emily Carroll's Ann by the Bed arrived at my house on Saturday enclosed in a nifty envelope featuring a couple of illustrations from the book. At the time I was working on the script about Grant Morrison's Bible John, a comic which in some ways resembles Ann (albeit without Carroll's innate elegance). Spooky.

Spooky is a good word to use when talking about Ann by the Bed, or any of Carroll's work which I have seen to date. There is an uneasiness to the reading experience. Like English writer Robert Aickman, Carroll's work does not resemble a conventional horror story. Unique attention is paid to the creation of tension and mystery, resulting in an atmosphere all of its own. Often the result is as much fairy story as it is a tale of the supernatural. Aickman coined the term “strange stories” to describe his own work and perhaps Emily Carroll needs to think of her own niche, define her own particular style with an equally suitable term.

Carroll changes up and challenges herself

Elkin: Spooky is the perfect word, Sheehan.

I've always had an issue with horror comics. The ones I've read try so hard to layer into that dark space of our reptilian brain which responds to fear, but they only succeed in being off-putting at best. I've never really been “scared” by them. Ann by the Bed (which, we should add, is what makes up the entirety of Youth in Decline's Frontier #6) was something else. Yeah, it spooked me. It genuinely unnerved me. It gave me both the willies and the heebie-jeebies.

Which surprised me. I had read Carroll's much-lauded and New York Times Bestselling collection of stories, Through the Woods, and, while I appreciated the artistry involved in her work and I was fascinated by her inventive story telling, I was never really overly anxious or afraid reading it. Ann by the Bed, though? This is some seriously spooky stuff here.

When I try to delineate what about this book makes it such an effective piece of horror though ... well that's where my skills as a critic start to stumble. Ann by the Bed doesn't pull any new narrative tricks compared to Through the Woods, nor does Carroll do anything all that different with her art here than before. So what is it, Sheehan? What makes Ann by the Bed the creepiest comic I've ever read?

Sheehan: I think part of what makes it work is the "urban myth" format which Carroll has framed the tale with. We've all heard them, and the fact that it is a tale about a friend of a friend's experience lends it a bit more credence. There is something about the story told first-hand which makes the hackles on the back of your neck rise. Last year my six year came home scared to death that “Bloody Mary” was coming to get him. Thanks a lot seven-year-old Ruben.

I hesitate to say I was horrified by Ann by the Bed. It was a much more “pleasant” experience than that. By contrast I have recently been reading Kathleen Jones' biography of Katherine Mansfield, The Story-teller. Part of the book's structure is that it looks at the life of Mansfield's husband, John Middelton Murray, after her death. It's an extremely disturbing read. Horrifying even.

Murray was involved in three subsequent marriages, at least two of them were disasters. In the first he could not see his young bride as an individual. To him she was Katherine reborn. Sexually naïve, he impregnated her three times in close succession with children she did not want. When she finally contracted tuberculosis, she was pleased because now he could at last love her as much as he loved Katherine (who also died of the disease). His next marriage was to a violent, abusive woman who was prone to rages in which she would assault Murray and his children and smash and destroy belongings and mementos.

Reading this makes you wince and recoil from the page. You don't want to push through because there is sure to be more unpleasantness to follow. Ann by the Bed, by contrast, leads us through chills and thrills and we are willing to go where Carroll leads us. It's fun. Well, until the end. The final parts, the bit that deals with a teen slumber party, (and the bullying and social isolation that can take place in such an environment), and the following two-page sequence which shows Ann and the unwanted attentions of her bother-in-law, are amongst the most affecting in the book. They are the most of "our world". The stuff that is closest in tone to John Middleton Murray's real-life horror show. 

Elkin: That's the thing right there, Sheehan, the “most of our world” bit that you just mentioned.

Ultimately horror is horrific when it hits closet to home. When you see your own fears foisted in your face you're quickest to glisten with sweat. As Carroll tells us, “the lion has to come to someone's house” and if you hear padding across the floor in the next room, what's to keep you from screaming?

Still, the more I think about this book, the more I am able to distance myself from my initial visceral reaction and look at it more as a puzzle composed of some very intricate pieces. In this book, Carroll manipulates conventional narrative with a surgeon's scalpel cutting through cause and effect, bouncing her reader through time and space, disconcerting as she disconnects, adding a layer of displacement to the tone of its entirety. Then there's her apt choices of art style and color use, each of which adds another emotional hue. As well, she varies the thickness of her inking to contract and expand, and her lettering changes to resonate with the mood she is working with. In Ann by the Bed, Carroll uses all the evocative tools that comics offer in order to concentrate the tenor and the feel of the reading experience.

Her mastery of all the skills necessary to pull this off, in a way, pushes the craftsmanship at work to the background, allowing the reading to be immersive, the emotions taut, and the creepiness to be all that more creepy. And it takes both artist and artisan to take all the intricate pieces and connect them in such a dynamic way. Taking apart this puzzle, I see what makes good horror, which then, conversely, allows me to see what makes bad horror so bad, or at least ineffectual.

Horror ain't simple like funny ain't easy. With Ann by the Bed, though, Emily Carroll makes it appear so.

And that's spooky and creepy and scary all by itself.

Sheehan: I too responded to the puzzle-like nature of the book. There is a great pleasure to be had in parsing the components of the pages and then fitting them together. There is also great horror. Last week, reading the book yet again, I felt appalled when I realized the true brutal implications of the marks discovered on the floor under Ann's body. This was not the chill of an odd noise heard in the dark.

But back to the puzzle. Back to the game.

I'm pretty sure the parts can be fitted in different ways for different readers and they all end up with a unique picture and that's because Carroll does not provide all of the pieces to her odd jigsaw. She chooses not to show us any of the most effecting moments and by this the reader must conjure them for themselves. Everyone has their own idea about what the game “Ann by the Bed” involves. Everyone has their own idea about Ann's last moments. In that respect I would disagree with you about the reader being disconnected or displaced from the book. I would say that Carroll provides room for the reader to be very involved and to make the book and its horrors very personal.

That choice, to withhold rather than show, is one of the things that make this book so different from Through the Woods. In that book Carroll did not avoid showing her monsters. It is a mark of how effective those stories are that they were so involving despite the fact everything was right up front. I jumped a little in my seat when I finished His face all red. I was sitting on a rush hour bus at the time.

The difference in technique is one of the things I most admire about Ann by the Bed, it feels like Carroll is changing up and challenging herself. There is even a feel of sly social critique in the piece, another aspect that distinguishes it from the previous work.

Hats off to Youth in Decline for commissioning and producing this wonderful comic. The monograph series that Ann by the Bed is part of is an excellent idea. Having a publisher provide a contained environment to experiment and create must feel like a blessing for the chosen creators. It's a format which allows for bold change or tentative development and that’s to be applauded.

I have already placed a pre-order for the next Frontier, by Jillian Tamaki, and I'll be keeping an eye out for what is coming out next from the imprint. 

Elkin: Yeah, Youth in Decline's Frontier series has been a gem. While I, too, am eager to see what Jillian Tamaki will produce (as well as Anna Deflorian, Becca Tobin, and Michael DeForge for the rest of 2015), I would also highly recommend looking back and picking up copies of Frontier #5 by Sam Alden and Frontier #3 by Sascha Hommer.

As for Ann by the Bed, for me Emily Carroll's work lingers in its puzzle pieces, haunts in its entirety, and crawls into many of my dreams, shifting shapes into the things of nightmares.

“Because they say Ann Herron's blood, IT NEVER DRIED.”

Spooky. Creepy.

Wonderful.

Ann By The Bed was released through Youth In Decline as part of their Frontier series of comics.

Family Portraits by Sam Orchard

Sam Orchard's three-part comic, Family Portraits, should be read in a single sitting. Approached as a unit, the books cohere into a nuanced exploration of gender, sexuality, culture, place and creativity (while still finding time to touch on questions of class and social privilege).  


If that description comes across as if Sam has created a kind of sociology text book in comics form then I'm not doing the work justice, or adequately conveying the way in which these constructs are so expertly teased apart and examined - or the highly personal and personable manner in which Sam manages to do this. He is a excellent host, inviting you to consider and think with not a hint of judgment or condensation.  


Family Portraits is a mixture of stories Sam has collected from individuals in the LGBTI community, along with personal reminisces, asides, observations and slight remixes of older strips and Sam's week(ish) web-strip Rooster Tails. This stringent description however fails to convey how deftly, and in what an original manner, these parts are woven together.  Too often in comics the idea of rhythm seems to boil down to a rigid staccato beat with no room for legato intervals. Family Portraits sidesteps this contrivance neatly and opts for an ebb and flow, each piece finding its own pace, its own length, its own voice, its own expression.  


That might sound like a description of a piece of music but Sam seems set on creating something akin to a symphony. So far we've probably just had the overture. Reading through the three books as they stand you begin to get a sense of the rich ground Sam is exploring, of the many, many strands of 'music' he is pulling together to produce his grand composition.
 
While it is the myriad voices which make Family Portraits compelling it is Sam's cartooning craft that supports those multitudes. Not flashy or sophisticated, there is little on the page which does not need to be there, Sam has a fine command of the page and the varying components that make up the whole. Varying styles and subtle use of colour usher the reader along, providing cues and reminders, allowing for changes in mood or tone. He is also a natural draftsman.  Sitting next to Sam at the 2014 Auckland Zinefest it was interesting to watch him draw as we talked. The pen never hesitated or faltered, all the time producing gentle, rounded, confident lines. Images appeared. Batman kissing Superman. Wolverine sporting a strap on. All warm, a bit naughty and funny. It was a pleasure to see someone so naturally extend themselves onto the page.  


Social messages aside a big part of Family Portraits appeal is the sense of play on the page. Along with Sam directly engaging the reader, in what feels more like a conversation than a monologue, there is also a lovely appreciation for the artifice of the page. At one point the action, of what looks like a draft version of a story is interrupted by a scribbled out panel. Turning the page we encounter a miffed Sam discouraged by the narrative, admitting that he's sidestepped difficult aspects of the story he is trying to tell. Eventually we return to the action but this time the previous stark black and white images are touched up by monochrome highlights. Panels, sometimes whole pages of them have been added, not just expanding the scoop of the story but complicating our interpretation of what we read before. Family Portraits is stuffed with that sort of invention, investing the book with a fun feel, a lightness of touch that is rare when engaging weighty issues.


Family Portraits is a great read. If there is any justice in the world it will soon be available in libraries and schools up and down the country or, ideally, sitting on your bookshelf or bedside table. Supporting Sam should, hopefully, allow him to continue with his great work, to continue his dialogue with the world and himself and help us all to open our minds and make the world a bigger, safer, more interesting place.


You can read Rooster Tails here (it contains exerts from Family Portraits) and you can buy the finished books here.

Libraries and schools can purchase copies of Family Portraits from Wheelers.

Kelly Sheehan
Faction Comics + Earth's End

Nothing Fits by Mary Tamblyn and Alex McCrone

My initial introduction to Nothing Fits came in the form of a particularly unimpressive Kickstarter video. Despite a well edited introduction montage and great atmospheric music, Mary Tamblyn and Alex McCrone were more dead than deadpan and mumbled their way through a script asking me for my hard earned cash. 'Put some effort in' I thought and half-heartedly clicked through to their online strips for a perfunctory glance.

Five minutes later I was back and pledged my financial support.



The comic that I had read was instantly appealing not to mention engaging, funny and smart. Underlying the strip's many virtues was an impressively snotty attitude. There was something brashly confident about the drawing and writing.



The opening pages introduced the scenario, characters and circumstance with admirable economy. There was nothing on those pages that did not need to be there; words and pictures complimented one another perfectly. This is perhaps reflective of Mary Tamblyn's (writer of Nothing Fits) background as an artist, born with the confidence that a picture can tell a thousand words but it must also be the result of a close creative relationship between writer and artist. Each seeking to support, rather than eclipse, the other.



If Nothing Fits reminds me of anything it is books from my 70s childhood, specifically the work of Joan Aiken, Diana Wynne Jones and Margaret Mahy, (the Godmother, the Materfamilias, of New Zealand fiction). On hand was the same feeling of mad, offhand invention, of imaginations that could be opened on a whim to gush dreams and drama. Hover cars, mummies, mad science labs, wizards, Egyptian gods, castles, snotty girlfriends, giant snakes, ghosts, strange rat people, formal gardens, foreboding forests, clones, magic portals and gods are all crammed together under one cover - but nothing feels out of place or forced.

Nothing Fits also shares with those grand dowagers an underlying tone which hints at the tragedy and disappointment of life. This nuisance is present throughout the whole comic, right up to the final illustration of the finished book, which provides an unexpected emotional punch to the gut as you saunter through the exit-simultaneously upending your readers perspective on the story you just finished.



The Wynne Jones/Mahy 70s connotations are reinforced by the art. Alex McCrone's scratchy pen and ink style brings to mind Pat Marriott and Quentin Blake, (with perhaps a touch of Tove Jansson). Giants of childrens illustration. What's strange about that is that I hated those guys when I was a kid (not Jansson!) and I love Alex's art. The pictures and storytelling in Nothing Fits have an effortless feel, as if it all just flows out from pen to page. I doubt this is true. What's on the page is probably the result of blood, sweat and tears. The product of a lifetime spent drawing.

Whatever. Alex McCrone's drawing chops are impressive.



Nothing Fits is a great collaboration between two equal, complimentary creators. The easy synthesis is reflected in the components that make up the whole. Monochrome colours wash over the inks in lovely gouache hues. From what I can tell they are painted, high-wire style, directly onto the page. That's pretty audacious. Look Ma, no hands! Makes me nervous just thinking about it. Equally as impressive, in an unassuming way, is the lettering. The font, created from the artists handwriting (I think), lends the dialogue an energy, underlying the scripts sass. No small accomplishment.



Nothing Fits started life as a web-comic. While you could quite happily experience it just on the page I'd recommend checking out the site where it all began. Along with the comments section banter there are some lovely Easter-eggs to be found in the attached process blog. Sketches, notes, additional mini-strips, fan art and asides give extra life to the main comic. It's from these features, viewed together and at a distance of a couple of years, that you feel the fission a web-comic like Nothing Fits can generate. There is the sense of things fermenting, of a community coming to life around a smart, beautiful strip devised by two young students from the arse end of the world. It's a heartening glimpse of the way the world is now, and the things that you can achieve with some pretty basic resources and a big imagination.

Nothing Fits can be brought here and read here.

Kelly Sheehan
Faction Comics + Earth's End

Holocaust Rex Book Two by Wills and Kidd

First of all, I love Karl Wills, and have read and enjoyed his Princess Seppuku, and more recently, Holocaust Rex Book one, wearing a nasty little smirk on my face the whole time. Now, I suspect that grinning at Karl's peculiar sense of humour may label me a bit of a sick puppy, but I have a feeling that is exactly what the author was counting on.

Actually, I should say authors, plural, as although this book is drawn and formatted in Karl's usual style, Holocaust Rex 1 and 2 are both written jointly with Timothy Kidd. I'm not personally familiar with Tim's work (that is I wasn't, until I read this post by Kelly,) but regardless, the book retains Karl's distinctive wit.

The humour is not to everyone's taste. It won't make you laugh out loud, but it sure as hell makes you grin; largely because what you're reading would probably make your mother turn blue in horror, while decrying the "disgraceful" and "disgusting" state of comics. Because it IS shocking - it throws up casual, discomforting horror in a way that can only be described as gleeful.

What makes the violence particularly jarring is Karl's distinct drawing style; His bold black and white lines lay the foundation for a simple, cartoony look that suggest a far friendlier and old fashioned mes en scène than the one Tim and Karl have in mind. Even the quaint children's book sized 14x10 zine format helps to belie the gruesome tales within.

In addition, Wills makes great use of the increasingly "old school" comic book exclamations - communicating emotions in popping sweat beads, dizzy-spell squiggles and hovering thunder clouds, even as the characters suffer excruciating pain. I'm led to understand that these little squiggles have a proper name* in the comic world, but to me they're just another fantastic example of why comics as a medium are so powerful. Where else could a few dabs of ink give the effect of communicating painful dismemberment at the same time as providing cutesy comic relief?

Anyway, down to brass tacks. Holocaust Rex is set in medieval times, and where book one introduced us to our eponymous lead, this second book introduces two physicians, Hans and Enoch, and the town of Koch (how does one pronounce that name aloud, Karl? Tim?). And in fact Holocaust Rex barely makes an appearance in this issue, as the story veers off at right angles, in a way that strongly suggests that this series has a lot more in store than the usual brief Seppuku story. The physicians themselves are deplorable creatures and are employed on a journey through their beleaguered city, introducing us to a grizzly, horrid place, that one imagines would smell so gut-wrenchingly bad that a quick vomy would be a normal part of one's daily constitutional. Filth, plague and the medieval setting makes for a winningly gory combination, and one that the reader senses the authors are reveling in.

And Tim and Karl stop at nothing - witch burning, dissection, rancid corpses, facial fungus and whores selling their wares while vomiting up their innards. But although grotesque, it is more than just the juxtapositions which gives Holocaust Rex its comic relief.

For me, the arms-length distance with which the authors keep their characters gives the books a delightfully misanthropic feel. You are invited to observe humanity with an almost scientific detachment, in all our sadistic, inhuman horror, while at the same time actually seeing the real humour in that horror. Pulling off that little trick is both discomforting and wonderful, and no mean achievement. I can think of few authors who have done this as convincingly.

Finally, Holocaust Rex evokes a real sense of mystery. For all it's distance, the story really drew me in with its slick, solid beat, as in only a few pages, and with an efficient and choppy pace, it alluded to a much larger canvas. While I loved Karl's short previous works, the thought of something longer makes my mouth water.

 In short, Holocaust Rex makes for a winning combination. Great art, great storytelling and a wicked sense of humour. It is not a series for the romantically inclined, or soft-hearted, but for the rest of us sorry bastards it makes for one brilliant wee comic.

Just don't let your mother catch you reading it.  

Get Holocaust Rex here.

Amie Maxwell Faction co-editor  

* I looked this up - brilliant!

Western Park by Timothy Kidd

The Great New Zealand Comic is currently a work in progress.

The comic in question is being constructed 24/7 in the head of creator Timothy Kidd. It is a hydra headed beast, consisting of numerous strips which overlap and interlink. Events revolve around the members of the Rabbit family and their friends and acquaintances; a grand narrative taking place against a backdrop of inner city Auckland and its satellite suburbs.

Some of the mesh of stories can be found over at the blogspot, Western Park. Served up in bite sized portions are a variety of stories, including; Bernard on the Eve, Blues Clues, Farfiva, Be my Ghost(1) and assorted diary comics and ‘test patterns’. Parts have turned up in small press anthologies such as Radio as Paper and Dailies. One section can be found in Adrian Kinaird's From Earth’s End: The Best New Zealand Comics, along with a profile of Tim and a (fascinating) short rundown of his working methods. Another was featured in cancelled fashion/style mag Pavement.

The tone of the strips is deadpan, nuanced with acid observation of the numerous characters foibles. Collected it would be equal parts sitcom, epic 19th century social novel and slapstick tragedy, desperate elements held together by exacting cartooning skills and an appreciation of narrative that runs from Dickens to Larry David to Jamie Hernandez.

The art is precise, gentle and keenly aware of the importance of detail and day to day observation. It's a style that has evolved over decades in numerous sketch books, and hundreds of pages of comics, a narrative in its own right, the antipodes equivalent of Crumb(2).

Part of a single page story that appeared in Pavement, (issue 62, summer 2003/2004) (3).

Came the dawn

Tim has been working on his comics for a long time.

Most of the forerunners to the current project(s) have been discarded or put on hiatus. The most developed of these, Came the dawn, emerged in a variety of mini-comic incarnations before being picked up by Karl Wills and released under his The ComicBook Factory imprint. Three parts were published, enough to give an appreciation of Came the dawn's level of ambition, enough to induce frustration that the series was suspended and now remains in limbo.

Came The Dawn covers 1-3.

Some sense of the scope can be gathered from the character gallery below. 20 characters, all sharply rendered fictions, none of them are on the page for long, yet each manages to make a unique impression and stick in your head.

Having read and re-read the three issues over the years I still pick up on subtleties and details which I have passed over up in previous readings. Came the dawn is happy to build at its own pace and you can keep up or fall away, it's up to you(4).

Half a world away

The first comic I read by Tim was Half a world away. I still have my copies acquired over the few years I worked at Mark One Comics in the mid-nineties. Seven A4 books, the paper now beginning to yellow and the staples to rust. You can see a couple of them below, in all their fallen glory.

Set in an unspecified town in rural New Zealand the characters are isolated by circumstance and disposition. Exchanges, when they take part, are tentative and unsure. The landscape stretches out around them, reducing people to an inconsequential component.

Under the alienation and loneliness is an undercurrent of threat that eventually erupts into violence, no less disturbing in that we witness the aftermath and not the explosion. More disturbing in that it follows a moment of tenderness and intimacy.

Half a world away was, and remains, an impressive comic (though will Tim squirm if you talk to him about the series).

I used to nag him about when the next issue was coming out. It was never fast enough (though always worth the wait). Which is pretty much how I have continued to feel to this day(5); expectant, but patient.

Because when you examine Tim's work, and realize the breadth of his subtlety and scope, there can be little question that when he does finally complete his Rabbit Family work, whatever it ends up being called, and whatever final form it takes, that it will be a New Zealand great.

So I can wait. 

Kelly Sheehan

Faction Comics + Earth's End

(1): The titles of these stories may change the next time they make it into publication.
(2) : My favourite section of these numerous volumes was where Tim began to copy vintage photos of the 40s and 50s. Suddenly his characters became more rumpled, disheveled. The slight awkwardness in the early work fell away and in place there was a confidence which has not stopped challenging itself since.
(3): Strictly speaking this strip is not from Western Park but it is from the general continuity so I've included it. Also it's a 'cross- over' story which features both members of the Rabbit family and Bernard who, in his own strip, currently remains trapped within the confines of his own room.
(4): Me? I'm still waiting for it start up again and lead me on a bit further.
(5): One thing about that: Any one of the works examined in this article was worked over by Tim to an astonishing degree, change upon change upon change. Just when you think it is finished there's something that needs to be added or subtracted or reworked. As an expectant reader this can get a little frustrating. And yet it's always worth it. Always. Those changes are done for a reason and you just better suck it up ,buddy because it's not change; its refinement!

Faction in the spotlight

"Faction 1 is what all anthologies should strive to be"

Faction comics continues to get some wonderful reviews! Check out what Panel Patter has to say about us here.

And CBR's Robot 6 gives us a mention here.

Lazarus by Rucka and Lark

Sometimes it's hard to find the desire to write a review when nothing really grabs you enough to give a shit - for good or bad. Then virtually without comment, someone slaps a comic on your book pile, and the next thing you know you’ve been smacked full in the face with a bolt of pure awesomeness. You’re grabbed, wrenched and enthralled, and when it’s over you find yourself Googling the due date of the next one.

Greg Rucka has created just that with Lazarus. Set in a future not too distant from our own – with the rich getting richer and the poor reduced to “waste” - - the book imagines a chillingly believable world just a few National votes beyond today. Set in the late 21st century, the ruling structures of the world are divided into family dynasties, which rule over their domains and the people living within them, with naked, profit-driven ruthlessness. The tech and military is owned and controlled by the “haves”, whilst the “have-nots” exist in the crumbling third-world remains of our own present infrastructure. 

Interestingly, Rucka gives a quick Family/Waste headcount in the beginning of each scene – providing not just context to the location, but also a deeper understanding that ‘The Family’ are few and ‘The Waste’ are many. And it is in the midst of this world that our lead character, Forever, is born. Well, actually - - made.

Forever is designed to be a genetically engineered weapon - and man, she is truly kickass - in the way that so many comic writers talk about, but rarely achieve. Artist Michael Lark has poured her into a tight black leather one-piece, with a sword that she brandishes with as much ease as her guns. Long, black flowing hair, flicked up into a ponytail, abs, biceps and a thickness that is refreshingly different to the skinny waifs I see everywhere else; I think I fell in love with her instantly. To Forever’s family – Family Carlyle, she is their human “sword and shield”, their protector and their Lazarus. Unlike the biblical version, diseased and deformed she is not. Though perhaps tellingly, it was the act of bringing Lazarus to life that started the enemies of Jesus plotting his downfall.

What is fascinating is how Rucka has shaped Forever - and in particular, the dichotomy between her toughness and innocence. Being grown and then trained as a weapon, Forever is largely ignorant of what her family really stand for and the vast sea of corruption that surrounds her. She shows obvious discomfort when asked to deal harshly with the lives of the workers and the unemployed “waste”, but remains fiercely loyal to the Carlyle clan. She yearns to be accepted by the family, especially her father, who coldly keeps those tensions stoked high.

Loyalty and Betrayal, Hubris and Humility, Have and Have-Nots, Good and Bad - this is the black and white world that Rucka and Lark have created for Eve -  and it feels terrifyingly close to our own.

Let’s take a quick look at volume 1.

The first issue starts brutal and bloody with a standout action sequence that puts Lara Croft to shame. Soon we are introduced to the Carlyle Family, consisting of five siblings - two boys, two girls …and Forever (AKA Eve). We also meet the rotten black heart of the family - their father, Malcolm; a classic patriarch figure, who controls his children and empire through both subtle and overt threat, as much as he does through emotional manipulation. At times it feels like a sociological experiment gone slightly wrong, power wrought on children to see how messed up you can truly make them. And the Carlyle Family are everything we could’ve hoped for in this sense - jealous, greedy, corrupt and insanely paranoid, of each other as much as of the other rival families. But as clear as this corruption is, it remains hidden from our Eve - and it is this crawling sense of betrayal that sits firmly at the heart of this story, and is what shapes the beginning of Forever’s journey.

But it’s not all darkness - Lark and Rucka also catered to a ‘girlie’ thrill on my part as well. When Eve and a rival family’s-own genetically engineered Lazarus meet, I enjoyed seeing Eve’s vulnerability shine through. Very Capulets and Montagues of course, but…ah, young (genetically engineered) love! it’s a beautiful thing. And it didn’t hurt that this other Lazarus was equally spunky.

Brutal

Lark’s artwork is a fantastic fit for this book, and is a real pleasure to behold. Inky, realistic and restrained at the same time, his line work shows off the world to full effect. But for me, it is Rucka’s storytelling that really stands out in Lazarus. The thoughtfully constructed future world and the political interplay of characters and environment is what ultimately seduced me. Rucka is a real auteur and I feel supremely confident in his ability to keep the pressure up even as he gradually tweaks back the curtains on his bleak vision of the future. His crafting of Eve gives the story tremendous momentum. And frankly, her character is the reason why this comic is just so very, very good. Rucka has imbibed her with so much depth, complexity and strength - finely balanced by an understandably child-like innocence - that it’s just impossible not to be sucked in.

With much of the story still to come, my prediction is that Rucka and Lark are going to take us on an amazing ride, and I cannot wait for Google to tell me when the next one is coming out.

Get the first trade here

Amie Maxwell
Faction co-editor