These. Damn. Kids! #1 Advance Review

These. Damn. Kids! #1 Advance Review

Second Sight Publishing 2021

Find this in July’s Previews for Pre-Order

Written by Peter Breau & Bradley Golden

Illustrated by Helmut Racho

Lettered by Hector Negrete

In a small town in Vicksburg, Mississippi the children have been acting strange. There have been reports of parents being attacked by the very children they raised. Some have even gone to school to try and kill the teachers and faculty. The town sheriff has brought in a young rookie cop, Gary Marshall, to help with what's going on and hopefully get to the bottom of why it's happening.

For those of who have been following my reviews for a while now this is prequel to Bradley’s series Leave the Light On and I have to say it’s really nice for that chance to revisit this world he created. Mind you these guys are giving the horror genre a run for their money with these and making an incredibly strong case for the next generation of horror masters. I’ve always said that there is nothing scarier than kids who are or go evil and kill and this just continues to prove my theory correct. Whether it is in their nature of because of the influences upon them kids committing atrocities will always give me sleepless nights.

I am loving 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 exceptionally well. The character development is marvellous and thanks to how we see the dialogue, the character interaction as well as how they act and react to the situations and circumstances they encounter help to flesh them out in truly genius ways. The pacing is sensational and as it takes us through the pages revealing the story, the characters and this world we’re transported into one of today’s most chilling stories.

I greatly appreciate the way that this is being structured and how the layers within the story emerge and grow. This is where the story gets its depth and complexity from as well as where we see the hints at what is causing this odd behaviour and it really adds this great tension and fear into the story. The way we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is achieved exceedingly well.

Huge, huge, huge fan of the interiors here. The linework we see is utterly exquisite and how the varying weights and techniques are utilised to create this level and quality of detail work that we see is bloody mindbogglingly brilliant! From the pattern in the wallpaper to how we see the bodies after the fact and the faces and facial expressions all do their damnedest to pull the reader in and place them into any given moment. The way that we see backgrounds and how they are incorporated into the composition within the panels bringing us the depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the story is magnificent. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels shows a masterful eye for storytelling. So how we see the hues and tones within the blacks, grays, whites and even blues being utilised to create the depth of dimension in the work is mind numbing. From horrific to plain fascinating the work takes the reader to the brink of madness and leaves them jumpy and ready to scream at the slightest provocation.

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You need to make sure you order this when next months Previews comes out or simply do it now. Call your shop tell em to put it on your pull and be done with it. This will make you uncomfortable in all the right ways and leave you begging for more. From seeing the parents to the kids after the damage is done and you won’t have a good night sleep for a while and that is precisely what an amazing story should do to you.