Filed under: Comic Reviews, Dark Horse Comics | Tags: Curtis, Dark Horse Comics, John Arcudi, Jonathan Case, Oxel, Stephanie, The Creep
The case continues in the latest issue in this Dark Horse title by writer John Arcudi & artist Jonathan Case.
Oxel pick-up his investigations as he seems to bumble his way through his daily routine – his meds, reading up on the case and getting lost in his head almost make him an easy target for the cruel outside world but he’s a good guy at heart. Something that Arcudi manages to play on as we just fall short of feeling sorry for him and end up being firmly on his side.
His late night drunken phone calls have gotten him in the bad books of the mother of Curtis’ friend who also killed himself and as part of his investigation to help old friend Stephanie, he’s digging deep into the friendship they both had before their untimely deaths. All the while we’re getting glimpses of journals kept by the two teenage suicide victims and we gradually get to know that there is more to come in this story. We even get a bit more history on Oxel himself and learn that his early career at an insurance firm was where his knack for investigation had started. The development of his medical condition saw him making a switch to working by himself as the long office hours became a struggle.
I think it’s these small glimpses into our main character as the main plot plays out that really show-off Arcudi’s craft here and just like issue’s #0 & #1 – we have Jonathan Case pushing the story along and emphasising the whole story with style. In this issue in particular there’s a great switch between the blurred perception some of our characters have of reality with the real world – Case blurs those edges with a sketchy feel to the unreal and a clean, crisp detail of reality…..probably one of the smartest storytelling tactics in a comic that uses all aspects of the medium.
This is going to run through to issue #4 and I’m almost certain that it’ll sustain this quality – I’m still not 100% sure where the story is going but I’m glad of that…..I’ll wait for the next two issues to lead me through the story laid out in The Creep. Top writing and art consistency have kept this a MUST-read and I hope there are more folks reading this.
8/10
G-Man
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