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Published by: IDW Publishing
Released on: Oct. 08, 2014
Writer: Steve Niles
Artist: Damien Worm
Cover artist: Damien Worm
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The team that brought you the three-issue series Monster & Madman delivers their latest twisted tale which is wonderfully dark but completely different. That tale was set in the late 1800s, this one is modern, and looks to be far more involved and layered. Starting with a cover that looks like it's inspired by Addams' Family (the old New Yorker comic strips to be precise), Niles' script jumps right into things.
Geoff if a loner, ostracized by his peers for a long time, and now one year out of high school, is still having to put up with asshole jocks. One in particular, Phil, doesn't let up on him and Geoff pulls out the big guns when he brings up the three friends killed in a drunken driving accident with the lying Phil at the wheel. And Geoff can apparently see the ghosts of the three teens hanging on Phil, pissed off at what he did to them.
Geoff has a sister, Vivian, who is still in high school and just as much the target of those who get off by bullying. And she can apparently see the young ladies picking on her as fat hags, perhaps what they look like on the inside. Geoff and Vivian have what seems a decent relationship, and want very much to prove to their father they have something to contribute regarding the haunted house they live in. Their father, Frederick, is a retired monster hunter turned professor who has a discussion with an old friend and his former partner, Lucas. Lucas still works as a monster hunter, and has some information about Frederick's cheating hussy of a wife. But she's more than just the town pump; she's got dark secrets of her own, like everyone else in the family. But we don't get to see what exactly her dark secrets are. Not yet.
A lot of info is quickly and expertly conveyed in the 20-page book, and at just one issue it's already an intriguing story. Not much is revealed of course, but there is some back story about Lucas and Frederick in the old days killing some werewolves (great flashback), and we know this family is quite dysfunctional, but there is most probably good reason for that. Niles script lays out three of the main characters really well in just one issue, and his creativity and pension for creating really interesting and different material doesn't let up here. He's found an amazing artist to pair himself with whose work on Monsters & Madman was dark, brooding and incredibly effective. Damien Worm's work here is slightly different, with more detail but also more color. But his style still maintains the muted tone, and although not as visually dark as his previous collaboration with Niles he still easily manages to make his artwork creepy and at times horrific. There's one splash page that shows the entire house they live in and it's amazing. And his ghosts are disturbing to look at too. He just hits it out of the park here as does Niles with creating an atmosphere most welcome in this world of brightly colored comics.
