Year: 2008 Writer: Becky Cloonan, Fabio Moon, Gabriel Ba & Vasilis Lolos Artist: Becky Cloonan, Fabio Moon, Gabriel Ba & Vasilis Lolo Publisher: Self-Published Website: http://www.khepri.com Genre: Thriller Description of book: This gripping tale of urban horror follows the lives of five lonely tenants – strangers – whose lives become intertwined when they discover a dark mark scrawled on the walls of their building. The horror sprouts quite innocently from a small seed and finds life as something otherworldly, damaged, full of love, hate, fear, and power. As the walls come alive, everyone is slowly driven mad – defenseless against the evil in the building, stripped of free will, leaving only confusion, chaos, and eventual death. Price: $8.00
Review: Whatever I expected going in... wasn't what I ended up getting here. This first volume of Pixu presents an odd character tapestry, introducing individuals whose personalities and histories are only hinted at in the wake of the situation in which they find themselves. This leaves a bucket of questions unanswered but just enough answers to keep a reader strung along for the ride. Most interesting is that some of these characters actually seem to realize something is amiss while others remain oblivious.
This isn't horror in the sense that it's not overtly frightening. It IS, however, vaguely disturbing: the plot feeling like an image that is somehow incorrect in a way you can't pinpoint.
Artistically, it's very dark and expressive, but also contains a heavy element of the surreal. The plot is the crime scene you can't pass without turning to look at. With elements like this in play, I'm very curious as to how this all resolves in part 2.
Overall: 4 stars.
Alex Haas