Blood Feud #1

Blood Feud #1
Released by: Oni Press
Released on: October 14th, 2015.
Written by: Cullen Bunn
Illustrated by: Drew Moss, Nick Filardi
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The first issue of this new five issue mini-series from Cullen Bunn, Drew Moss and Nick Filardi starts off with a narrator explaining that he's going to tell us how he “and a few buddies squared off against the very legions of Hell and maybe even saved the world.”

R.F. Coven is hanging out in a truck with his pal Cecil Burnett who is yapping on about how seeing a blue jay on a Friday is a bad omen. While they're talking they come damn close to running over a pretty blonde woman trying to flag them down in the middle of the road. Why? She's trying to stop them from running over the horde of tarantulas crossing the road - there's a migration, she tells them. This gal's name, our narrator tells us, was Sue Hatchell. She's a college girl in town studying the spiders.

Turns out these guys live in the appropriately named town of Spider Creek. It's a nice town, the kind of place where people look out for one another. R.F. likes it a lot, except for the Whatley Clan. His grandfather told them they had the witch's touch, and R.F. is obviously not a fan of theirs but as they seem eternally involved in a feud with the Stubbs family they don't much bother the other people in town. At any rate, they deliver their load, some furniture from Mrs. Ellis, to a shop owner named Mr. Reese but when it comes time to bring it inside, Cecil gets distracted when he sees grizzled old Roy Avrum walking down the street with a bucket of frogs. And yeah, he's got a bucket of frogs, they're making all sorts of noise, but when they spill out onto the street it's clear to everyone who sees them hopping around and making that noise that they're dead.

That night Cecil and R.F. play cards with their pal Jack Siever. The dogs start barking outside and someone calls for help - it's Sue. She brings them out to the woods where an injured man recently startled her. He's still there, they approach him and Cecil recognizes what's left of the guy as Seth Stubbs. They move him to the house, he mutters something about a blood feud and that he's the only one who survived. R.F. figures he has to mean the Whatleys, so he asks Cecil to get his funs and his flashlights. He and Jack are going to head outside and heads towards the Stubbs place, maybe find the person responsible for this, while Cecil and Sue call for the doctor.

They head out, and then things go from weird to quite a bit weirder…

Bunn's story is off to a good start. If his work on The Sixth Gun and Harrow County are anything to go by, and it is, then it stands to reason the guy has a knack for small town horror and southern gothic style storytelling. This one may be set in the modern day but it still fits right in there with the type of stories he's been making a name for himself with. Interesting characters, creepy situations and just the right hint of mystery and horror make this a fun read, and we get a bit of decent humor too, the kind that doesn't feel out of place alongside the darker content. The art from Drew Moss and Nick Filardi properly reflects both the horror and the humor that Bunn conjures up. Things are slightly exaggerated in the way that they are depicted but it works and they do a nice job with a few of the more unexpected set pieces that are a big part of this first issue. This is a good start - like a good first issue should, it leaves you wanting to know where things will go from here. Guess we'll find out soon enough.