Be careful of who you meet online … you never know what they might be hiding.
Creative Staff:
Writer: Lou Iovino
Artwork: Cristhian Crizam Zamora
What They Say:
A smart college student begins to change who she is in order to garner the attention that comes with traditional beauty standards. But as she drifts further from herself, will she end up attracting the wrong kind of attention?
Content (please note that portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Bea has always wanted to be one of the popular girls like her roommate Jess, but she was too conservative for most people. She was seen as the bookish, reliable one while her friend was the party girl who relied on her looks to get by in life. And yet, Jess could still depend on Bea to come to the rescue if her dates ever went wrong, which was too often for her to admit. So, to placate her frustrated companion, she suggests an online dating site, much to her frustration; however, as Jess begins to settle into the anonymous conversations, the fickle girl soon learns that she is beginning to like the flirtatious nature of the situation.
However, as time goes by and Bea is coerced into continuing one of those incognito chats, she slowly starts to realise that she likes the anonymity and begins to nurture a relationship with one of Jess’ matches; subconsciously, she begins to fashion herself into someone who would be able to compete with her partner if they ever did meet. Unfortunately, her friend also fancies the same guy and makes the first move by responding to a request for a date. This infuriates Bea and she begins to formulate a plan to remove the competition so that she may have an open path for the encounter. But, as her former companion Jess learned long ago, sometimes what you wish for isn’t necessarily want is presented in real life. Perhaps the nice girl should have waited for the right guy?
In Summary:
This tale was a delightful twist on the warnings by law enforcement of predators using the internet to stalk for new victims; writer Lou Iovino was able to turn this cautionary tale from a seemingly innocent chat towards the dark side when you mix jealousy and a need to prove yourself to a mocking crowd. This is a grisly example of why you never share IRL information without thinking it out, which Bea would have done if she was thinking clearly. The only thing missing from this story was a carried through conclusion fitting to a Grimm Tales of Terror tale: a ghastly end for the protagonist with Keres watching over her judgement. Although this end was implicitly laden with a gruesome fate, the creep factor is missing when it is implied and not shown. Iovino had the build up and all of the steps in place from the previous pages, it just fell short when the deed needed to be done.
It is a shame since Cristhian Crizam Zamora’s work steadily built up the tension in the story with carefully crafted pauses of monotony from school life and turned it around with trips into Bea’s world of death. He was able to ratchet the suspense as we watch her gradual descent into resentment as she endlessly needs to help Jess while sacrificing her own happiness. The changes of mood reflected on her face and the stress grappling her movements dramatically changes the story’s atmosphere as we can see her progress into madness. This method of unfolding the story is fitting to for Bea as we can see her world unraveling physically as she does emotionally.
Although this tale didn’t have the chills or outright violence as previous stories from Grimm Tales of Terror, it does fit nicely into the anthology. The psychological breakdown of the main character is another kind of horror we don’t usually see in lieu for the current generation’s need for the gross out instead of a silent killer. If the two methods were able to combined into one story, this issue would have had a more impact, but sadly it just hints at what could have happened instead of showing us what did happen.
Issue Grade: B
Rating: 16+
Released By: Zenescope
Release Date: December 23, 2015
MSRP: $3.99
