Life goes on, but not without twists.
Creative Staff:
Story: James Tynion IV
Art: Michael Avon Oeming
Letterer: Aditya Bidikar
What They Say:
From the New York Times bestselling and multi-Eisner award-winning co-creators of Something is Killing the Children, The Nice House on the Lake, The Department of Truth, and Powers comes this ambitious, non-fiction comic book experience depicting true stories of UFO abductions with an eye to capturing the strange essence of those encounters.
Madness and paranoia continue to take a toll on the sanity of Betty and Barney Hill as they search for help in determining whether their nightmares may have been missing memories of their alien encounter.
Also including “True Weird: And I Have Been Promised It” by Genevieve Valentine, Ming Doyle, and Aditya Bidikar.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The series draws to a close here and moves through a good bit of time to do so, but it does it in an engaging way to show the path of our two main characters. The abduction aspect of a lot of the 50s and 60s storytelling has always been interesting but it wasn’t something I gravitated toward in a huge way, preferring big space opera material more, but as I get older I enjoy the quaintness of such things and the way creatives are looking at new ways of using these tales that feel simpler but no less engaging. James Tynion IV set up a solid tale with the opening issues in giving us time, place, and characters that you can connect with easily while Michael Avon Oeming, a real favorite of mine from the last few years, puts it together beautifully with the color scheme chosen and the kind of designs overall.
The focus on Betty and Barney works well here as we see how they do more with the hypnosis side of things and that through sketches and separate work, they find that they’re able to consciously unlock more of their shared experiences together. The doctor that they’re working with isn’t a believer but he finds that they’ve all reached a comfortable level with things in order to move on, and both of them basically just try to live their lives now that they don’t feel like they’re crazy. They do keep up with a small UFO sightings group in the area, but the pressure of the uncertainty is off and both finds fulfillment in their lives at that point. It’s refreshing to see that and that they’re able to move forward once again as they processed the event itself.
What becomes interesting, and problematic for the pair, is when someone recorded one of the gathering events and it ended up as part of a larger story that went national. This takes the story on a whirlwind where eventually a book was written, more exposure given, and the pair found a bit of fame from it but still just tried to live normally. Barney’s life is cut short but we see how Betty expanded on events and that it inspired others to research it through other angles, which brought it into more famous circles such as Carl Sagan and his Cosmos series, and in turn people trying to disprove his disproving of what happened. It’s certainly interesting to see these elements and to know how Betty’s life went, but also to be there for her final moments. It’s reminiscent of a few other recent works to me but it’s also welcome to see the story come to a close yet still be somewhat ambiguous depending on you personally want to interpret it.
In Summary:
Blue Book was a welcome change of pace from a lot of other books I’d been reading from Dark Horse recently. It’s a solid and small story with some personal flair to it for the characters and it was done with gorgeous artwork and color design to make it stand out all the more. And to be thematic in a fun way as well. I kind of dread the usual mini-glut of black, white, and red books we get these days but there are areas where doing specific single-color work can be a big plus and enhance the story. The artwork for this was able to do that thanks to Oeming’s talent here as it all comes together wonderfully. This is going to be a book I hope more people discover in trade form over the next few years and find something wonderful within for this genre.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: June 28th, 2023
MSRP: $4.99
