Information from Stephen
Nasty, nasty, nasty.
In BATMAN: THE BLACK MIRROR, AMERICAN VAMPIRE’s Scott Snyder proved he could successfully mess with our minds, playing upon our expectations to keep us guessing as to the protagonist’s much maligned innocence or psychopathic guilt. Here, along with co-writer Scott Tuft, he plays upon our fears, our worst nightmares of being lost and alone a long way from home, helpless and hopelessly trapped. Then there’s the matter of trust, and the sinking, hollow horror of finding it most misplaced.
One year ago young, aspiring musician Jack Garron stumbled upon evidenced that he was adopted, ever since when he’s been gripped by the secret hope of finding his father. Instead of confiding in his loving, adoptive mother he managed to make contact, and the last letter he received mentioned a fiddle-playing gig in the city of Chicago. That’s where Jack’s heading now, having run away from home to stow away on a freight train. But the freight train’s occupants are far from friendly, while what’s waiting for him in Chicago is even worse. What follows is a cruel breadcrumb trail that will take Jack further from home still; what’s so damnably clever is how that trail was laid.
Unlike BATMAN: THE BLACK MIRROR this isn’t an “Is he or isn’t he?” – we know right for the beginning that there’s a murderous, cannibalistic monster waiting in the wings, adopting a succession of seemingly beneficent guises and preying on the young and vulnerable, so when Jack strays too close for comfort the dramatic irony racks up a tension so taut it’s not true. As to his new friend Sam(antha), found on the freight train, just… don’t go there.
Attila Futaki’s art has a fine period feel while the colours are suitably dowdy, for this is all told in retrospect. Even the countryside is low-lit and earthy. It’s a far from comfortable read set in series of uncomfortable, bleak or outright hostile environments: bedsits and bars, hotels and motels and shacks in the middle of nowhere.
