A walk on the dark and disturbing side.
Creative Staff:
Story: David Hine
Art: Alberto Ponticelli
Colors: John Kalisz
What They Say:
20 years ago: Ray Pilgrim became a celebrity when he discovered the unique ability to see through the eyes of psychotic killers who were terrorizing London…but his world collapsed around him when he was accused of the same crimes as the monsters he hunted. Now: Pilgrim’s teenage daughter is using her blog to investigate a ring of child abusers that includes some of the most powerful men in British society – men who are prepared to kill anyone who threatens to expose them. To protect his daughter and uncover the truth, Pilgrim must revisit his own dark secrets and the twisted path that led to the hotel room the media called The Bloody Chamber.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Continuing with my promise to pick up all first issues of AfterShock books this year, February has the debut of Second Sight. The book comes from writer David Hine, who has a wide range of works over the years at the big publishers and independent publishers alike, and artist Alberto Ponticelli. Though I’ve read of both men I’ve never actually read any of their work before so I get a pretty fresh experience here. And it’s one that certainly fits in with some of the British material I’ve heartily consumed over the years as fans of Peter Milligan and the like will certainly find a great deal of appeal here in the mix of the supernatural and the disturbing reality of the darkness within mankind.
The book introduces several different things into its opening chapter while working in both the past and the present. Central to it is Ray Pilgrim, a man who has had a rough and hard life because of his involvement twenty years prior in a murder case where he ended up having his own psychic abilities awaken. It lead to him trying to help but over the course of time it proved to be his downfall. It’s why, in the present, he’s concerned about his daughter Toni as she’s running a blog trying to prove the culprits behind the Wednesday Club, a secretive group that’s involved in child abuse and more. With cases going back decades and a lot of dead kids since then, she believes she’s on the right path and wants to bring the truth to light. But with such a surreal series of events involving things people would rather not think about, it’s hard for folks wrap their mind around and much easier to dismiss it as fantasy.
Ray’s psychic ability is something we see early on when a journalist tries to get a rise out of him for some press and does just that, but part of it is seeing the supernatural element. We’re not clued in to a lot of what’s going on here as it’s really about establishing the base setting and the characters. With Ray as the central focus, Toni comes across well as a young woman wanting to change the world. Her mother, Ray’s ex, Tess is also introduced briefly and she really wants her daughter to have nothing to do with him since there’s so much history there with what happened all those years ago. Ray’s in a bad place and it’s easy to see just how much of a toll it’s taken on him. His curiosity as to what Toni is doing seems limited to just wanting to make sure she’s ready for the blowback that’s coming, but you can sense there’s more to it as well.
And then there’s the guy in the leather bondage gear that’s destroying people for a few panels in some mildly perverse ways to get things rolling here. That’s going to be part of the driving force going forward as you can guess that Ray will “see” what’s going on there, but right now it’s just a tease. One that comes across well as Ponticelli gives it the right kind of edge to it while still being in tone with the rest of the book. There’s a familiarity to his work that hits a certain sweet spot for me that I associate with the look of a number of British-authored books like this, though Ponticelli is out of Italy so it’s not exactly the same. But it works well here as there’s a lot of detail and a very dynamic look to the placement of the reader in seeing each of the panels and the flow of it. His work is also very, very, well complemented by John Kalisz’s coloring work on it as it’s filled with a richness with a lot of attention to detail to make it all stand out in a great way.
In Summary:
Second Sight was a book I went into without any foreknowledge about it. I’m enjoying going into a lot of AfterShock’s works without any real expectations of views on the books so that they stand on their own. Second Sight is going to be a rough book for a lot of folks with the content involved, dealing with child abuse, torture, and other elements, but at this stage it also feels restrained compared to a few other books that have dabbled in this area over the years. That’s not to say it’s a walk in the park on a spring day, but it’s not hardcore – yet. Hines has put together an interesting cast quickly where we get a good feel for aspects of their lives while Ponticelli brings it to life in a really engaging way. I’m definitely intrigued and will certainly be circling back to this series in the future.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 15+
Released By: AfterShock Comics
Release Date: February 10th, 2016
MSRP: $3.99
