The darkness only gets darker.
Creative Staff:
Story: Troy Nixey
Art: Troy Nixey
Colors: Dave Stewart
Letterer: Troy Nixey
What They Say:
The remaining glimmer of hope Giuseppe had for Trout’s safety is destroyed, but he has no time to grieve, as he has to battle a war and a giant supernatural tsunami. Meanwhile, Trout has his own problems, trapped in the belly of the enemy, and Nicky Nine Doors continues to whisper his poison in the young boys ear. Will Trout be reunited with his family? Only time will tell.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
I continue to be fascinated by Troy Nixey’s works. I’m really at a point where I can’t say that I like them in a way but I’m fascinated by his story of both art and storytelling. It’s just a certain level of oddness to it that separates it from what most everything else is like in a general sense and I want to decipher it so I can be on the inside with it. The artwork itself is something I get more since it has an older feeling to the designs that remind me of a lot of works I read growing up as a kid outside of comics and the color design is just rich. That combined with some really great layouts and just a sense of naturalness, surrealism, and decay mixed into it leaves me wanting to sink my teeth into even more of it.
Trout’s tale is one that’s still largely wordless on its part but watching what he’s experiencing under the sea is intriguing. There’s a lot of talk about warmth and happiness toward him and the way that Trout has really bonded with Giuseppe but the reality of the timeless is that people are just blips in the greater scheme of things and it’s best to let those go sooner rather than later. But we also see other creatures down in these depths that want to have much darker events happen and are orchestrating that, which is going to result in the end of Giuseppe’s town as a starting point. The back and forth is still a bit hard to latch onto as I feel like I need a key to understand who these players are but the bits that I get really do come across as intriguing.
Giuseppe’s story is one that I’m still not really sure of but we see some of the strangeness of the war that’s going on with the seemingly supernatural event and just the artwork alone makes it worth reading because it’s like stepping into a whole other world. Giuseppe himself makes it back to his place with the man in the diving suit but that’s not really a man, man, but rather a sea creature that has helped him out. There’s intent to get back in the game and find Trout as Giuseppe realizes he can’t just believe he’s dead and has to know for sure so he’s going to believe that he’s alive and go forth. That, naturally ties into the tsunami from below that’s coming around and it’s just frightening the scale of destruction that’s about to be visited upon his town.
In Summary:
I almost thought I had an idea of what this book was going to be like at the start of its run but I also had that feeling with some of Nixey’s other works and that didn’t prove to be true. This issue moves more things into place for the finale and sets up some bigger moments that ought to be a real treat to see next time around. Trout himself still feels like a minor player in his own book but those around him are providing more than enough dialogue to make up for his lack of it. I’m glad to see Giuseppe stepping up even if it’s coming at the bleakest of times for him and the town.
Grade: B-
Age Rating: 17+
Released By: Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: August 21st, 2019
MSRP: $3.99
