Grimm Tales of Terror Quarterly: Bachelorette Party

Grimm Tales of Terror Quarterly: Bachelorette Party

Zenescope Entertainment 2021

Written by Jenna Lyn Wright

Illustrated by Vicente Cifentues & Rodrigo Xavier

Coloured by Maxflan Araujo

Lettered by Taylor Esposito of Ghost Glyph Studios

Over the centuries it’s become customary to celebrate the bride-to-be with one last crazy night, bidding farewell to her old life. But, when a group of friends decides to honor the upcoming marriage, of one of their own, with a classic bachelorette party, things begin to unravel and they quickly realize that some traditions are best left in the past.

If there is one thing I might wish were different it's that the opening isn’t related to the story well enough and it would’ve been great to see the Vegas story aftermath and then go back to what led up to it. This just would've made a little more sense to me. Now let’s get onto the story itself. I will say that I googled the history of the Bachelorette Party and it’s natural progression as the ultimate Hen Party. Part of this was sheer curiosity and the other because of this story and what we see here. I had to wonder how recent of a creation this was, after all it presents an interesting set of thoughts in motion regarding the age and adaptability of what we see. Jenna Lyn does a nice job pulling the engagement of the reader way off page and into the real world possibilities.

I like the way that 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 presented exceedingly well. The character development that we see through the narration, the dialogue, the character interaction as well as how we see them act and react to the situations and circumstances which they encounter does a marvellous job establishing and maintaining their personalities. The pacing is excellent and as it takes us through the pages revealing the story, it’s twists & turns we really get treated to this modern day nightmare.

I’m pretty impressed with the way that we see this being structured and how the layers within the story emerge, grow, evolve and strengthen. I like how we see the layers open up avenues within the story to explore and this is very purposefully done but still feels like a natural flow kind of thing. This of course adds all kinds of depth, dimension and complexity to the story. How we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward are impeccably achieved.

I am a fan of the interiors here. The linework is clean, crisp and sharp, the varying weights and techniques that we see being utilised to create the detail within the work that we see is extremely nice to see. That we see backgrounds being utilised as they are to enhance and expand the moments makes me such a happy camper. The way 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 wonderfully handled. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show an extremely talented eye for storytelling. The various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work shows a great understanding of how colour works.

​

Now if you are going to do a one-shot it should be at least this length or page count, it’s like a three issue arc all told at once after all. It does make sense for the Quarterly books to be in this format and this one really showcases why as it has a chance to shine with the way the girls go about the events that lead up to the ending, yes super vague but you need to read this not hear me expout what’s in the book. This has some good, solid writing and great characterisation wrapped up in these highly entertaining interiors showing why horror is Zenescope’s jam.