Bettie Page in The Curse of the Banshee #02

Bettie Page in The Curse of the Banshee #02

Dynamite Entertainment 2021

Written by Stephen Mooney

Illustrated by Jethro Morales

Coloured by Dinei Ribero

Lettered by Taylor Esposito of Ghost Glyph Studios

In issue #2, things are not as they appear to be in Ireland as Bettie comes face-to-face with the mysterious Banshee. But, with eh ability to alter its shape, the Banshee continues to prove an elusive mystery, one which Bettie Page finds herself hard-pressed to solve!

Gotta say I love how this issue opens up with Bettie trapped by the Banshee, shooting it with her gun and not doing a lick of damage. One thing is for certain this doesn’t seem like a Scooby Banshee if a gun doesn’t slow her down. This has turned into one of the best series I’ve been reading and that’s thanks to the liberties taken with Bettie by turning her into a government agent that specialises in the weirder the better cases. Add into the mix she’s a good shot and a darn fine hand-to-hand combatant and you are just upping the ante for me. Or course this version of her life and career is much more fascinating than the one where she was making fetish films, becoming a born again Christian and being diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenia.

I am a huge fan of the way that this is being told. The story & plot development we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented exceptionally well. The character development that we see through the dialogue, the character interaction and how they act and react to the situations and circumstances they encounter is magnificent to see. The pacing is superb and as it takes us through the pages revealing more and more of the story it’s easy to fall in love with Bettie and have the need to see and learn more.

I am enjoying how we see this being structured and how the layers within the story continue to grow, evolve and strengthen not mention emerge anew. These avenues are great and while some are red herrings others will help immensely. The layers contain the characterisation, the twists & turns and so much more and add this great depth and complexity to the story whether they work with the main arc or not. How everything works together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is so well achieved.

The interiors here are a lot better than I remember, go figure. The creativity and imagination on display from seeing Maire to the Banshee herself I’m really rather impressed with the detail that we see being put into these. The linework is great and how we see the varying weights and techniques being utilised to create the detail work is sensational. The way we see backgrounds are nicely done as well and how they work within the composition of the panels to bring out the depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the story is well rendered. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a very talented eye for storytelling. The colour work is also pretty marvellous. The various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work show a great understanding of colour.

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I really am a huge fan of this series and while I never grew up being a Bettie Page fan I certainly knew who she was and her cult icon status. Women friends of mine worshipped her and if I had seen these stories growing up I might have worshipped her too. With such smart, intelligent writing and characterisation alongside some really good strong interiors this is the way I wanna fall in love with Bettie Page.