Creative Staff:
Story: Jeff Lemire
Art: Jeff Lemire
Letterer: Steve Wands
What They Say:
Will’s a melancholy building inspector who’s been grieving the loss of his puzzle-loving daughter for years. One evening he receives a mysterious phone call from a girl claiming it’s her and that she’s trapped in the middle of a labyrinth, setting Will off on a journey digging through her personal journals and puzzles for answers on where she is and how to bring her back home.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
With three books from Jeff Lemire out from Dark Horse today, it’s just silly how much good material we’re getting that’s engaging and different from each other. The opening installment of Mazebook definitely caught my attention and has rolled around in my brain for the past month, excited to see more and where it’ll lead to. The story is one that feels like others of this nature from him with something darkly personal and delivered with the kind of stylized artwork that’s appropriate for it, very rough, kind of angular, sparse in color design but still distinctive. And at the same time, it delivers something that is really intense and captivating in a way that you can’t get from a lot of other series.
With a lot of heavy lifting done in the first installment, the second issue of Mazebook builds upon that in a pretty interesting way. Will’s definitely struggling now that he believes fully that his daughter is alive and that he just has to figure out how to rescue her. I do like that while it makes an impact on his work, he hasn’t just stopped going entirely, simply taking one day to go and see his ex-wife Elena and try and connect with her on this. The reality is that he does need someone to know what he’s going through and the two have shared more than anything else ever before. But even here he can’t convince her and it comes on top of all the other strains that happened since their relationship fell apart and she moved on with her life while he simply stopped completely. He does get some of what he’s after, finding the maze books in the attic there, and that helps to move him forward on this particular path.
That it’s hard to tell what’s real and what isn’t is part of the allure of this as Will’s mind isn’t what it used to be in some ways. When he goes looking for the maze that night, it’s definitely something of a dream as after the encounter with the homeless man he ends up dealing with a talking dog that does eventually lead him to the massive maze. I really loved the visual of the telephone poles at first and what it could mean, but it gave us a more straightforward piece after that. Yet, as it goes on and Will has to deal with real-life for a bit while trying to process everything, his time atop the massive buildings of the cities makes him realize that what he saw really is just another version of what’s here. It’s simply a matter of figuring out where in the city is the entrance and where the center is, as that’s exactly where his daughter will be. Or, at least, he hopes.
In Summary:
Mazebook continues to be an intriguing delve into Will’s mind as he struggles with loss and we have to wonder how much is real and how much is in his mind. Naturally, part of you wants it all to be real, for him to discover that they were wrong all along and she’s alive somehow. But then there’s the reality that it’s just that Will needs to finally move forward with his life and accept things and that this is the process his mind has landed on to try and help him work through it all. I really like the possibilities here and like some of Lemire’s other works that he illustrated, it has such a distinctive look to it that I’m drawn to it even more. I’m eager to see what’s next.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 15+
Released By: Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: October 13th, 2021
MSRP: $3.99