Fear Case #4

Fear Case #3

Dark Horse Comics 2021

Written by Matt Kindt

Illustrated by Tyler & Hilary Jenkins

As agents Winters and Mitchum hunt down the supernatural murder box known as the ''Fear Case,'' their trail goes off course, and the powers and kill list of the case grow higher!

God this is an amazing story and I have enjoyed every single solitary moment of it thus far! Aside from the fact that all three of them should be award winning creators and that they work so well together is frightening. It’s frightening because it’s so damn good and we’ve never had any team come close to providing this level and quality of work together and I’m counting Wolfman & Perez in this and they are the standard i’m judging by. Mindbogglingly brilliant storytelling from everyone involved and it is so engaging in how it lights up the creativity and imagination in the reader as well keeping them invested in the characters.

I like how this issue opens up and the discussion the partners are having. The whole time they are talking and arguing it feels like two men who are family and after a year plus chasing down this case they’ve gotten to know each other to that point so the fact that things go down the way they do is rather interesting.

I love how this is being told. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is present perfectly. Each moment is meant to happen as it does and while at times it seems chaotic there’s always a method within the madness. The character development is amazing to see and as if the dialogue weren’t enough on its own the way we see them act and react to the circumstances and situations they encounter help make them just completely and utterly relatable to. The pacing is superb and as it takes us through the pages revealing all the twists & turns along the way gets us caught up in this like it’s a hurricane.

The way that this is structured is fabulous and to see the layers within the story start to take on more importance we see how these developments impact the larger picture extremely well. How everything works together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as carry the story forward is impeccably rendered.

The interiors here are unreal. I can’t begin to accurately describe how well this husband and wife team work together. The linework is beautifully rendered and the attention to detail that we see is mind numbingly good. The composition within the panels and how we see backgrounds being utilised as they help create the depth perception, sense of scale and that overall sense of size and scope of the book is bloody marvellous. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show such a masterful eye for storytelling. The watercolour painting of this is unimaginably good. How we see the various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work is stupendous. Also those pops of colour are perfectly placed within the book, then there’s that last page and forget about it.

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I have seen variations of this story told, television, film and novels, but never have I seen it done like this. That there’s a whole world of crazy that these guys have to navigate as they introduce themselves into this job and this office. The world they see and become a part of is just crazy and the complexity of everything that surrounds them is something out of my worst nightmare and my greatest dreams. Somehow they make this world appealing to the reader as a place you want to be and that top layer belies what lies beneath in the cesspool of crime, drugs and mob style families. Enter at your own risk so buckle up and get to reading because we all know it’s not your first time at the rodeo.