Parasomnia #4

Parasomnia #4

Dark Horse Comics 2021

Written by Cullen Bunn

Illustrated by Andrea Mutti

Lettered by Simon Bowland

As the nameless stranger battles nightmares in a dream world on his hunt for his missing son—his life and his family's in the real world continue to fall apart in this chilling conclusion to this supernatural and melancholy tale.

This is one of the most emotionally charged supernatural stories that we’ve come across. Cullen does this phenomenal job blurring the line between reality and fantasy, in this case a dreamworld, where reality is subject to whomever is thinking what it is. I mean reality could be the father acting like a homeless man wandering the streets or his reality could be the highwayman that is searching the world for the Queen and his son. That there is such a blurred line between the two is literally brilliantly rendered. That we seem to spend equal amounts of time in both realities continues to keep that blurred line alive and well and once we see a certain event happen within these pages that line becomes even more indistinguishable and I could have been any more surprised or delighted by this turn of events. Also regarding the boys mother, I’m glad that she still is around to understand that her estranged husband isn’t as crazy as she once believed.

I’m a huge, huge fan of 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 impeccably rendered. The character development that we see through the dialogue, the character interaction as well as how we see them act and react to the situations and circumstances which they encounter continues to flesh out their personalities incredibly well. The pacing is excellent and as it takes us through the pages revealing more and more of the story the more and more intrigued and engaged we become.

I am absolutely loving the way that we see this being structured and how the layers within the story continue to emerge, grow, evolve and strengthen. The layers here open up new avenues while also exploring those already opened and what this does is add some delicious 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 is immaculately achieved.

Goodness Andrea is simply a marvel. His work is just bloody gorgeous in how we see the linework and it’s varying weights and techniques being utilised to create this detail we see within the work. The backgrounds that we see and how they expand and enhance the moments are beautifully rendered. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a masters eye for storytelling. For all that it’s the colour work that impresses me the most. Just the way it’s able to be utilised to show the aging of buildings, add depth and dimension to clothing and even show how light sources can direct light. That not all colours being utilised are what you would expect is just an added bonus to me. The various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work are bloody brilliant to see.

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I’m used to reading some hella good horror from Cullen but this switch into the supernatural, fantasy-seque realm that is this emotionally charged is simply one of the strongest stories that is currently on stands. The way Cullen gets the reader to empathise and feel for Grover and what he’s going through though not many can imagine putting themselves in the position of losing a child the way he has. This is so intelligently and smartly written with some amazingly emotional characterisation alongside these masterful interiors to create a world where you can’t tell reality from dreams.