WRITER: STEVE NILES | ART: DAMIEN WORM | PUBLISHER: STORM KING PRODUCTIONS | FORMAT: SINGLE ISSUE | RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

Right from the opening page of this book, there is something arresting and immersive about the highly detailed, slightly wonky, and exceedingly indie comic art style, all slender lines rendered with a scratchy ink pen and very unlike the soft edges and digitally buffed sheens of modern commercial comics. The storytelling also allows room for the art to breathe and to do the heavy lifting on moving the plot forward, which is just as well, as our moody lead character says barely a word for the entire first issue. And understandably so. 

Monica is a sullen teenager, giving her widowed father the silent treatment in revenge for his moving them both away from a settled life in the city, into an uncertain life in the back of beyond. Her stressed and grieving father is still holding out hope that Monica might come round, and she almost seems to as she takes a stroll out into the woods. And then, finally, the plot happens.

We actually enjoyed the slow, art-driven storytelling approach but, if you knew enough of what the plot was likely to be (i.e. from reading the book’s title), then you were waiting literally the entire length of the issue for the story to even start. And, judging from how quickly we were then thrown into the plot to come when it finally turned up, the overall story would seem to be awfully thin. For the art alone this is a title we’d be inclined to keep following, but the evidence for the plot getting any thicker or less obvious with future issues seems just as thin as the plot so far.