AUTHOR: BILLY POTTS | ARTIST: ERWIN ROPA, BILLY POTTS | PUBLISHER: LIGHTHOUSE COMIC STUDIO | FORMAT: SINGLE ISSUE | RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
Soon after his discharge from a mental hospital, AJ becomes involved in a mystery that makes him question if he was truly ready to re-enter the world. A dog, whose voice only he can hear, declares himself to be AJ’s spirit creature, and AJ is quickly swept up the fallout of a series of gruesome murders.
Although taking place in the modern day, Ink takes ancient myth as its inspiration. The antagonist is an entity of primordial fear inspired by similar creatures from otherwise disparate mythologies, and it has begun killing people with tattoos, tearing the ink out of their skin along with the flesh and blood. Despite such a brutal premise, the story is surprisingly light in tone.
With Dog as his guide, AJ has had the role of Chosen One thrust upon him in the latest iteration of a cyclical prophecy, but the sheer absurdity of the pairing is allowed to fully play out in quick-fire dialogue. Dog alternates between cheerfully blasé expository pronouncements and clueless queries about what everything around him in the modern world means, not unlike how a dog probably would speak were it actually able to, while AJ’s deadpan acceptance of the situation suggests it’s not the weirdest thing his eyes and ears have subjected him to.
As the duo encounter Amber, a fiery tattoo artist who refuses to take anyone’s crap, and Daryl, a police detective investigating the murders and with whom AJ has a mutually antagonistic history, the extent of the story’s scope starts to be revealed. The quartet of protagonists begin to take their place as variations on archetypes of heroic adventurers, reworked into modern equivalents that simultaneously fit with the everyday as well as the unseen world of phantasmagorical horror they have unknowingly become a part of.
For a story that’s essentially about artwork, that by which its pages are brought to life is a concoction almost too vivid to seem real. High contrast and rich colours create a vibrancy that jumps from the page, thrusting each image into your face with welcome detail. The tattoos at the story’s core are given the most intricacy, not just drawn as generic symbols or logos, but recreations of the kind of elaborate interlocking designs people build up over time when they’re serious about decorating their skin with personalised art relating stories, history and memories.
The plot of Ink has only just got going, and it’s already compelling reading. It promises to be a dark and foreboding tale, but also one with enough humour and heart to keep it from becoming disheartening, while the central mystery and formidable antagonist will keep it exciting every step of the way.
