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Harrow County Volume I: Countless Haints

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    Ian Jane
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  • Harrow County Volume I: Countless Haints



    Harrow County Volume I: Countless Haints
    Released by: Dark Horse Comics
    Released on: December 2nd, 2015.
    Written by: Cullen Bunn
    Illustrated by: Tyler Crook
    Purchase From Amazon

    In the opening pages of this new series from Dark Horse Comics, 'the folk of Harrow County put the witch to death' but Hester Beck did not go without a fight. Her time as a healing woman apparently lost its meaning and the rain, which washed away the ink in the preacher's Bible, meant that she didn't even get a proper burial. Anyone who knows anything about horror stories knows that this is not a good sign, not at all.

    From here we learn what set the townsfolk off - livestock turning up dead whenever she was around, and then later her attempts to give the children a baptism of sorts in the local creek. When it was discovered that she was engaging in unholy couplings in the woods and then what she was feeding the beasts with which she frolicked so, the people decided that something needed to be done. When she was hanged, they later burned her body to assure that she would not heal herself the way that she had healed others but as any good witch will do in such a situation, she promises those who watched her die that she would return.

    Years later we meet Emmy, a young woman who grew up on a farm and who lately has been plagued by nightmares of a familiar looking tree. Emmy is afraid of that tree, she knows its history and how it was struck by lighting and how the hollow that bolt opened up was filled in with concrete. She wants nothing to do with the old oak, but yet she hears it. Later that day she seems excited to hopefully name the newborn calf but as her father, Isaac, tries to talk her into not getting to attached to the new addition to the farm they find that the poor thing has died and its sibling is right behind it. As her dad goes to get his gun - no need to let the thing suffer he tells her - Emmy holds the dying calf and before you know it, the thing is able to walk. Emmy's happy about it but her dad is confused as to why the livestock keeps being born only to die shortly after.

    Old man Riah comes by to visit, his wife Bernice in tow and loads of canned food to deliver. Emmy's dad isn't excited to see him at all, but the girl is happy enough to see them, particularly when Bernice gives her some new books. As Isaac talks to Riah about the problems with the livestock he mentions that Emmy is 'almost of age' and wonders aloud if that isn't the reason he's having these troubles. The next day Emmy, bored, wanders into the woods…

    Picking up immediately where the cliffhanger ending of the first issue left off, the opening pages of the second issue of Harrow County find Emmy running through the woods trying to keep calm while shuttling what is basically a husk of empty human skin out of the bramble. The skin is wiggling, and she's arguing with it. Emmy figures she has found a haint, the ghost of a Confederate soldier looking for body parts lost in the war, the spirit of a lost child or an old evil spirit. Something supernatural, something evil. But then she realizes this isn't much of a ghost if it's still alive.

    She sneaks into the house, stashes the skin in her dresser and changes her clothes. When her pa comes in he asks her how she's doing and she notes she was out in the woods with the brambles but when she looks at her hands her wounds are gone. Later she dreams about the past, about the townspeople and the old oak tree and the witch that was put to death there years back. She wakes up and the skin in the dresser is stirring, it speaks and warns her about 'the window' and 'the tree' - when she looks outside she sees a whole bunch of people out there at that old tree she was just dreaming about. The skin tells her what the people are saying, about the pact that was made and how the time has come. Her dad is out there, he's one of them, and so is the body that left this husk of skin she's found alone out in the woods.

    It's been decided that the witch must die.

    Her dad knocks on her door and finds Emmy has fled. We know what he doesn't - she's run off into the woods again…

    Harrow County #3 finds Emmy out in those woods again, this time at night but at least she's not alone, Bernice is with her - and so are some spirits, staring at her silent but ablaze. As they approach, Emmy orders them to stop and surprisingly enough, they listen and not only that, they seem to be afraid of her. But they don't want her to leave. Are they trying to hurt her or protect her?

    Bernice and Emmy talk as they walk through the dark woods and Emmy starts to wonder about a woman from her past, a woman that disappeared quite suddenly. Her pa told her she got married and moved, but what if she did something that the townsfolk didn't like and they got rid of her? Just then they dim their lanterns, the sounds of those same townsfolk getting closer. The skin in Emmy's bag starts to talk to a corpse without skin and it seems to try to lead them away from the pair. It's too little too late. Emmy turns around and her pa is there, shotgun in hand. He doesn't want to do it, he tells her, but she is what she is…

    Harrow County #4 once again picks up with Emily in the woods, though things are very different since we began the last issue with Emily in the woods. The townsfolk, her father included, want her put to death believing her to be a witch - and they're partially right, she is a witch.

    The skin in her messenger bag warns her of something - and then she sees what it is, a beast she can no longer control, a beast that calls her a liar for not coming back as she promised she would and a beast that is not happy that it was forgotten. But Emily is strong, stronger than she realizes, and she's able to fight back and then make a break for it. She makes it out of the woods in time to almost get hit by Mr. Sorrell's truck as he drives it down a dirt road. Seemingly unaware of what's happened to her, the kindly old town pharmacist offers to drive her wherever she might need to go. She takes him up on his offer but soon finds a cloth full of chloroform over her mouth sending her into a deep sleep.

    She wakes up in his house, bound to a chair. He gives her some water and tells her that what he did was for her own good, that he did this to keep her safe and that he was only doing her bidding.

    “You're her.”

    We flashback to Hester's story years back, we learn how the people of Harrow County did not welcome her, how she took solace in the woods and lived amongst dark things and how her loneliness led to her creating her own kind of company that was, to most folks, as human as those that pushed her away. She sent them out into the world and how that eventually backfired on her. And then we learn of the scared mission that Emily's predecessor Hester blessed Sorrell with… and why. For better or worse, this young woman is starting to figure things out on her own.

    Some great twists await in this issue, not the gimmicky kind, mind you, but the kind that keep you coming back, the kind that can make a good story great and the kind that take a tale you think you've got figured out in some surprising and unexpected directions. Cullen Bunn is weaving a yarn here that is working on a few different levels - it's got that backwoods folksy charm to it in the way that the dialogue is written, but at the same time it's never lacking in visceral horror. There's some interesting character development here not just with Emily but with some of the supporting characters, human or otherwise, as well and by the time we get to the last page, just as it seems like things are settling down we're thrown for a loop.

    Tyler Crook continues to deliver some killer artwork here. Again, his strengths show not just in those eerie panels and pages that take place in the woods but in the depiction of emotion in the different faces of the different characters as well. Quite possibly the best horror comic on the market right now, this is one that you're crazy to miss out on if you're at all a fan of occult themed or gothic spook stories.

    For those who missed out on the single issues as they were released earlier this year, Dark Horse's trade paperback collecting the first four issues of the series is a great way to get in on this series. It not only collects the interior pages of each of those issues but includes the covers as well, and if that weren't enough we get a nice selection of sketchbook pages with some notes by Bunn and Crook giving the sketches some context and offering readers a glimpse into their creative process. We also get the original page that the two of them created as a tool to pitch the series, a quick one page strip that was done for a comic retailer order form, a map that serves as their 'guide' to Harrow County, an unused cover piece, some pinups and alternate cover pieces and a few chapters of the serialized novel version of the story that was its originally intended form. There's almost forty pages of extra material in this collection!







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