Review: Rachel Rising #1-3

I didn't develop an appreciation for Terry Moore until fairly recently. Somehow I missed out on Strangers in Paradise when everyone was raving over it, and I wasn't terribly familiar with his work outside of that and his brief run Runaways. Then, a particularly awesome person I know was kind enough to send me Echo, and it didn't take me long to see just what made Terry Moore so great. It only took a few pages before I was completely sucked into the comic, and every issue seemed to introduce new twists or ideas that I found compelling. There something about the way Moore drew people that appealed to me hugely. I don't know how to explain it other than to say they had a realness to them. There was something about them that made them feel like more than characters. It was a really neat quality that only increased my absorption in the story and made me anxious to check out whatever had coming next.

It so happens that that was Rachel Rising, a story about a girl who wakes up in a shallow grave with no idea how she got there. Moore takes a slow burn approach here- the first nine pages are virtually wordless- but it's  never dull, and it never feels as though a page has been wasted. Instead, the silent opening is an incredible powerful hook. Any reader is going to come away with countless questions- who is the mysterious women watching what's happening? How did she know what was going to happen? Is she what brought Rachel back? When you do get to the first bit of dialogue, it feels like a shock to the system. You're pulled straight from a nightmarish world into reality, but you can't help but feel like you never really woke up.

What really makes this work is how real the world Rachel Rising is set in feels. There are no stock characters, not even when it comes to minor characters with one or two lines. I feel like Terry Moore's fully developed personalities for everyone we've seen, even if they're destined never to appear again. The presumable villain in all this has never been given a name and has only spoken a few lines, but she's still been established as a powerful threat, and she's managed to creep me out on more than a few occasions. More important than anything else, I feel for Rachel in all this. It's easy to empathize with how terrifying all this must be for her, and how she must want answers but want things to go back to normal at the same time. I've actually flinched a little at lines spoken to her because of how much I could already relate to her. The characters keep Moore's work grounded in reality, and no matter how strange Rachel Rising gets in future issues, I feel like the comic's world will still read as authentic.

I love bright, colorful pages in comics, and black and white art can be a hard sell for me. I do think the pages would benefit from the occasional pop of color- especially when it comes to Rachel's eyes- but for the most part, Moore's art is so good that I can't imagine it being any better colored. He's a great visual storyteller, and while this isn't an action oriented comic, his panel to panel motion is excellent. As I said before, his characters genuinely look real, even though he doesn't draw in a hyper realistic style. His facial expressions and body language are really powerful, and his characters don't all look as they were drawn from the same mold. There are some nice little details in his backgrounds, and he does a great job at making things look creepy without going over the top. I'm not sure if the comic will stick to its current level of eeriness or move into downright ghastly territory, but I'd love to see something truly gruesome rendered in Moore's style.

The only thing that would make me hesitate to recommend Rachel Rising right at this moment is the wait between issues. Every issue of the comic so far has ended on a cliffhanger, and it can be intense waiting a month or two to see what happens next. Moore's serialized storytelling skills are excellent, but I have a feeling some readers may grow frustrated waiting to get next issue's answers. While I definitely feel like every issue has given me my money's worth, for some, this may be a comic that reads better in trades. To the best of my knowledge, a Rachel Rising trade has yet to be announced, but I'll be sure to announce it here when that changes.

Rachel Rising is an eerie, compelling comic that's interesting not just because of its mysteries, but also because of its well crafted characters. There are elements in it that are fairly terrifying, but I wouldn't classify it as a horror comic. It's just a really interesting story, and I'm happy to follow it wherever it goes. I'd recommend this to fans of Terry Moore, fans of well written female characters, and fans of character driven work in general. Moore is a great talent, and Rachel Rising is him at the top of his game. Whether you jump into it now or follow this one in the trades, you won't be disappointed.

By Marceline with No comments

Murder Mysteries

Neil Gaiman’s short story / radio play Murder Mysteries got the comic book treatment in 2002, adapted by award winning writer Philip Craig Russell.   Gaiman wrote this tale during his glory days; he was so good back then it’s easy to imagine his quill sparkling with fairy dust if shaken.  Russell had previously adapted the works of Ray Bradbury and Michael Moorcock; in comics he had tackled Batman, Daredevil and Hellboy, among others, so he was well qualified for the task.

Russell handled art duties as well, and while the colouring is that standardised computer colouring that I find mostly uninspired (I mean no disrespect to the colourist, it’s the technique I dislike), the pencil work is solid. Initially I thought it competent but a little sparse, lacking the detail such a profound story required, but on subsequent readings minutiae began to emerge that adds gravitas to the main story, and almost tells a story of its own. The child’s drawings, the distances between characters, the light and dark and the shadows that lie between are there for a reason.

The structure of Murder Mysteries is a frame narrative which can be tricky to get right; anyone who’s ever tried it will understand what I mean.  The opening story introduces our narrator, a lonely male in modern day Los Angeles; he’s not a native of the city so he’s a little lost and out of his depth.

After returning from an empty sexual encounter with a woman he barely knows he takes a walk, and settles on a park bench.  This bench moment is where the first act ends and the second begins; I say that because reading is like watching a play unfold.

A much older man shares the bench and asks if our narrator wishes to hear a story, a true story...

In the tradition of Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner, the older man begins to tell a tale that he claims to be a part of, and thus he becomes the story once again.  The reader also becomes involved in both the listening and the telling; it becomes a triumvirate of cause and effect.  Few people manage to get it right but Russell makes it work beautifully, which is doubly amazing as he has such a short space of time in which to do it.  The page count is a mere 64 pages.

The old man speaks of a murder, in heaven, the first murder, which forces the angel Lucifer to task Raguel, the angel of vengeance, with unravelling the truth.  Raguel now becomes our guide, even though we have changed perspective we are still firmly within the original narrator’s story.  The frame narrative I mentioned before begins to take shape.  It’s better if I don’t reveal anything more from here on because like the title suggests, it’s a murder mystery, it would be wrong of me to take away the mystery.

It’s never explicitly revealed if the Lucifer in Murder Mysteries is the same Lucifer in Gaiman’s Sandman series (and subsequently Mike Carey’s offshoot); there are enough similarities to suggest it is but also a number of significant differences.  Lucifer is a multifaceted tragic character, not merely the evil snake in the tree; think Blake crossed with Milton theologically glued together with romanticism and you’re partway there.

Despite the beautifully stylised images of the heavenly City calling for the reader’s attention, I found Russell’s representation of the real world, the contrasting Los Angeles, to be a lot more interesting, and while both were characterised as a silent but almost sentient character in the story it was the mortal world that had the edge.  I would love for it to have been fully painted.

It’s a short work but deceptively deep; it can easily be read in one sitting so the parallels between the two stories should be easy to spot.  After the last page has tuned don’t be surprised if you’re left pondering the differences between free will and fate, regardless of your beliefs, or lack of.  Ultimately, Murder Mysteries is a compelling, complex work that gives back as much as you invest in it.  Essential reading for Gaiman fans and highly recommended for everyone else.

Note: If you want to read the original prose story it can be found in Gaiman’s Angels and Visitations  (1993) and Smoke and Mirrors (1998) anthologies.

By Dr Faustus with No comments