The Devil Tree #1

The Devil Tree #1

Blood Moon Comics 2021

Written by Keith Rommel

Illustrated by Wolfgang Schwandt

Coloured by Kristal Sayers

A ruthless serial killer brought his victims to an ancient oak tree. The torment the victims endured is said to have seeped into the grounds around the tree that still stands to this day, haunted and visited by thousands every year. Based on a true story.

I’m a sucker for a story based off of a true story especially when it deals with local legend or lore that has a dark twisted history surrounding it. You can tell this is something that Keith really likes or has an admiration for this tree and the mystery surrounding it. His familiarity with this is kind of infectious as the tales we see here really do engage the reader so that we do some research of our own to learn more about this tree and the stories surrounding it. Now this is the sign of good solid writing when you take time out to check out what a story is based off of and you fall into a rabbit hole. So yeah I like how we weave in, out and around the stories and how this tree influences the people that come into contact, no matter how tenuous, with it.

I am very much enjoying 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 are extremely well 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 does a magnificent job in establishing their personalities. The pacing is excellent and as it takes us through the pages introducing us to the characters, the story and the world this inhabits is terribly intriguing.

I am enjoying the way that we see this being structured and how the layers within the story begin to emerge and grow. I am also liking the way that the layers within the story open up new avenues to be explored. With a first issue we see a lot of avenues to be explored and it will be interesting to see which ones get that attention. However, they all add this great 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 handled.

The interiors here are interesting to me. You can tell that Wolfgang is fairly new to the sequential comic book storytelling medium. There are inconsistencies in how we see the faces and bodies but they do get stronger the further we get into the issue and I’m looking forward to seeing him keep progressing as a sequential artist. I do like how we see backgrounds and how they enhance and expand the moments as well as 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. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a decent eye for storytelling. The various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work shows a sensational eye for how colour works.

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I like how we see the way that these stories we see throughout the book are connected however tenuously together. They also do wonders in showing how the tree is something of a symbol and how it influences these people even without their knowledge that it is happening at all. This is a great example of those small/indie/self-published books that I like to talk about because it’s got such huge potential and it just needs a few issues for everything everyone is doing to gel. This is a fresh new exciting voice in the field and thanks to this solid writing and great characterisation wrapped around these interiors that’s well worth your attention.