What’s come before and will what will be collide.
Creative Staff:
Story: Ryan O’Sullivan
Art: Andrea Mutti
Colors: Vladimir Popov
Letterer: Andworld Design
What They Say:
After the stunning success of Fearscape, comes A Dark Interlude, the story of—No! The only offense to literature greater than the loathsome synopsis is the sequel. I will not stand idle while some poor excuse for an editor mangles and confuses my story, which is intact, perfect, and concluded, with this derivative drivel. Mark my words, this nonsense has nothing to do with my tale. I am not in it. I do not condone it. And you, dear reader, should not buy it. -HH
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The opening installment of A Dark Interlude is something that is going to have me kind of giving this book some space in terms of grading. I don’t know quite how to grade it since it’s not something that’s really able to broken down by a single issue in the run. Serving as a semi-sequel of sorts to Fearscape and working from there but looking to go in a different direction, it comes from the same writer with Ryan O’Sullivan and pairs him with Andrea Mutti for the artwork. It’s my first time reading O’Sullivan’s works and this is a hard one to connect with but it’s helped by Mutti, an artist I’ve admired for several years now and always make time for their stuff if I come across it. Mutti’s take on the worlds that we’re introduced to here is great, especially with the kind of earthy color design we get from Vladimir Popov as well.
Following from what came before, the general idea is that we’re dealing with a world that is stuck in dealing with sequels but needs to get past that. This may be because the nature of storytelling has been on hold as the last Storyteller that dealt with the Greatest Fear in the Fearscape some 400 years ago didn’t kill it like he was supposed to but rather imprisoned it along with another fear, which has confused the system. He’s being sought for help now in fixing things, as it seems like he’s fallen through the cracks of the world, and because the supposed current Storyteller, Henry Henry, is in prison for a lot of things that went badly in the previous series involved absconding with works that weren’t his, polishing and it selling it, and various attempts at murder and more. Suffice to say, he’s in prison and not allowing his next work to be published, which may be part of what’s causing the problems.
At least, that’s my guess as to what large chunks of this issue seem to be about from my interpretation. We’ve got an unreliable narrator at work, in my mind, and it’s a property where I didn’t read the Fearscape series so this is new to me and not a sequel. But it’s very much a sequel and that’s part of the play that’s being made. I do really like the concepts at work here as we see some of the Fearscape and the ideas behind how it works and what it means on a worldwide scale with the way humanity has its seemingly global fears that permeate it at times. The concepts definitely work and the execution is interesting enough to keep me on board, but mostly at this point I’m just loving the visual design of it all and hoping that with a couple of issues it’ll all make a whole lot more sense – and that I’m at least partially right on my interpretation so I’m not starting from scratch.
In Summary:
A Dark Interlude is full of potential and intriguing material. I have no idea of the real intent since we have an unreliable narrator right from the start but that just adds to the mystery to me and has me keen to see if it can pull this off. At the same time, it’s a strong book visually that delivers a great looking experience from a talented artist that digs into some neat corners for fears and design work. I’m not sure how to really feel about a book like this but wanting to come back for more is definitely the best thing I can say about it.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 15+
Released By: Vault Comics
Release Date: November 18th, 2020
MSRP: $3.99
