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Harrow County #9

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    Ian Jane
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  • Harrow County #9



    Harrow County #9
    Released by: Dark Horse Comics
    Released on: February 10th, 2016.
    Written by: Cullen Bunn
    Illustrated by: Carla Speed McNeil
    Purchase From Amazon

    Artist Carla Speed McNeil takes up her pencil for a guest spot on this ninth issue of Harrow County, illustrated up to this point by Tyler Crook (who handles lettering duties) and written by Cullen Bunn. If you're not caught up, well, that's on you - but you should be, because this is hands down one of the best horror comics, no, one of the best comics period, on the racks right now.

    When this latest issue begins, a train barrels down its tracks, those in the engine room unaware that there are some unusual stowaways aboard. One of them hops off as the train slows around a corner, and is on his way, his pack over his shoulder and a smile on his face. He's hungry but somehow manages to catch a bird in his bare hands, which takes care of that issue - no need to cook it, raw will do just fine. But wait… is it hunger? Probably not, as he turns the bird's corpse into a harmonica.

    Under the porch of the farmhouse that Emmy shares with her pa rests the boy with no skin. He hears the music from said harmonica, and knowing that something is amiss he contemplates waking Emmy up from her sleep. Deciding against that, he instead finds his skin, stashed folded neatly in her dresser, swipes it from her room and heads out into the night. He creeps up behind the hobo from the opening scene, but he's busted before he even knows it. The hobo invites the skinless boy to join him in a meal of pig's feet, but the boy declines. Doesn't stop the hobo from chowing down. Seems he was hungry after all. The hobo, however, has got a mouth on him - he asks the boy questions he knows the boy doesn't have answers to, chief amongst those his name. And then he mentions Hester. The witch.

    They head into the woods, the hobo still talking and the boy now quick enough to catch the rabbits he could never catch before, in the same grove that the witch, Emmy, found his skin to begin with. The hobo keeps talking, intent on upsetting the boy, making him relive unpleasant parts of his past, The hobo brings the boy home, to the home he had before he was skinless… when he had a name.

    Well, first things first, Tyler Crook didn't illustrate this issue and his style is soooooo distinctive and soooooo tied into the look and feel of this series that, well, it's hard to imagine anyone else even touching it. So it is to the credit of Carla Speed McNeil that the art in this issue holds its own against what has come before it. Does it look like Crook's art? Nope, not even close. It's a very different style to be sure but it's not at all inappropriate, in fact it works very well. Different is good if it's done right, and this is done right. The same weird sense of super rural locations and settings and style is worked into this issue, as it should be, but it's illustrated with a style that uses heavier lines and maybe a slightly looser penciling style. But again, it looks good, it suits the story and it just has the right vibe.

    As to the story this issue, it's kinda-sorta self contained, but maybe not. We just don't know yet. Obviously with a series like this, a run that builds off of earlier issues in a big way, continuity counts but you can come into this one and still 'get' what's going on. Does that make it a good jumping on point for new readers? Maybe, but it's best to start from the beginning. Bunn's prose is a bit more minimalist here than it in the issues before, it's really just the hobo doing most of the talking in most of the issue, but there's something dark and sinister and ominous about all of this. It's going to go somewhere, and that somewhere may very well be unpleasant.

    On top of that we get a one page Tales Of Harrow County backup strip entitled Friends, written by Bunn and illustrated by Jessica Mahon. It's short, but definitely weird and creepy and completely in keeping with the tone that Bunn has set with the Harrow County proper storyline. A nice little bonus feature for an already fantastic comic.








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