After Vinegar Teeth, I delve once more into the world of Troy Nixey.
Creative Staff:
Story: Troy Nixey
Art: Troy Nixey
Colors: Dave Stewart
Letterer: Troy Nixey
What They Say:
A strange trip into the Supernatural! Blaming him for the loss of the children of lower Upton, the townsfolk burn down Giuseppe’s turnip factory and run him and Trout out of town. Sick and distraught, the two have no other recourse but to travel across the ocean to Giuseppe’s childhood village. Trout is lost along the way, and Giuseppe is forced to deal with his brother’s meddling in order to find the mysterious little boy he’s sworn to protect. Can Giuseppe find him before Trout meets his fate at the hands of the god of the sea?! And who is the shadowy figure trapped in a giant shark egg who is struggling to keep Trout alive?! One thing’s for certain: for better or worse, Trout will never be the same again.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Troy Nixey has a particular style. And outside of the color work done by Dave Stewart here, he does pretty much everything with this book, which makes it pretty distinctive and interesting for that alone. I’d read some of his work with Vinegar Teeth before and had a mixture of fascination and abhorrence with the art style as it goes in some ways that you really don’t see all that often anymore, not that it felt like it was a common style. But it’s intriguing and I wanted to support more diverse styles like this to see where it would go. And it fits the stories he’s telling well, as I can imagine reading a collection like this in the dark of the night with a flashlight and getting the full effect with it. But it’s also a struggle as it is so different and there’s an overwhelming amount of details to it.
With a series prior to this that I have not read, we get the quick and dirty at the start here with the reveal of how a town had all of its children turned into tadpoles and everyone accusing Mr. Lint about it. Especially since the boy that he’s apparently caring for, Trout, remained “human” overall. Trout’s an odd-looking bit himself, and that’s saying something in this world, but events in this turn now have these two fleeing for parts unknown. What we do find is that they’ve booked passage on a ship but a storm seems to be following them even on there, causing the sailors to not want them on board any longer – even over the objections of their captain. Everything about Lint and Trout feels like it screams wrong and unnatural and the fears of the superstitious sailes takes the forefront here.
Everything about this issue feels like you’re really there, in a way. Standing on that boat in the rough waters, rocked about pretty hard, the loud sound of the sea, the fear of the sailors, and the knowing of what’s on the other side of the door. Now, it does delve into the supernatural under the water that has its own goals and I’m completely lost with that aspect of the story as it doesn’t feel like it’s setup well, but it has creatures intent on keeping Trout alive and not caring about Lint. But watching events on the boat and the surreal supernatural side of this otherworldly set of creatures that understands what’s going on is fascinating and horrifying at the same time.
In Summary:
After a few issues of Vinegar Teeth I knew that I wouldn’t have a good footing with this book, especially since it’s a second series featuring the character of Trout. But I’m mesmerized by Nixey’s artwork and style and want to see more of it, to try and suss it out and make sense of it all in a way that my brain has a hard time doing. There are a lot of intriguing aspects to this book and it leaves me wanting to know more but also afraid to really try to delve into it all again. I’m uncertain as to whether I’ll delve in for a second round but I’m definitely glad that Nixey has a home at Dark Horse for fans to follow his works so easily.
Grade: B-
Age Rating: 17+
Released By: Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: June 19th, 2019
MSRP: $3.99
