Vinyl #04

Vinyl #04

Image Comics/12-Gauge Production 2021

Witten by Doug Wagner

Illustrated by Daniel Hilyard

Coloured by Dave Stewart

Lettered by Ed Dukeshire

Walter can’t remember who he is, and without him, this serial killer rescue mission is doomed. In other “sunflower death cult news,” the Beast and Mother are loose, Guy and Vic brawl against a frenzy of Sunflower Girls, and Rennie has run off to make clothing from human flesh.

Not going to lie, I'm kind of pissed now. While I’m sure we knew at some point there might be collateral damage but really now this is going a bit overboard and my favourite little characters to boot. At this rate there had best not be one survivor of this book well except for Agent Ruiz she can survive this. Dennis is proving to be a big ole pain in the arse and not worthy of all this mess if you ask me. Still that I’m in such a right state about all this means that Doug’s writing of this tale is massively on point and has done a lovely job of getting me involved and engaged in this book in ways I wasn’t expecting to be. Now that we’re in the Halloween season this could’ve been a little more gory but i’ll accept it as is heh.

I am such a 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 presented perfectly. The character development which is phenomenal thanks to the dialogue, the character interaction as well as how we see them act and react to the situations and circumstances which they encounter fleshes them out beautifully. I’m loving every single moment of seeing these personalities be brought to the forefront. The pacing is excellent and as it takes us through the pages revealing more of the story we’re not only caught off guard but it’s full of shock and awe.

How we see this being structured and how the layers within the story continue to emerge, grow, evolve and strengthen is magnificently rendered. I love how the layers open up these different avenues to be explored and those that are and those that won’t be 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 is magnificently achieved.

I really do like the interiors though I wouldn’t mind seeing more gore and viscera but hey it’s all good for those who may be squeamish to enjoy this as well. The linework is clean, crisp and strong and how we see the varying weights and techniques being utilised to create the detail within the work that we see throughout the book is superbly rendered. We see a fair amount of backgrounds being utilised much to my delight and they certainly enhance and expand the moments as well as bring this great sense of space to us. They also work well within the composition of the panels to bring out the depth perception, sense of size and scope as well as how we see 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 remarkably talented eye for storytelling. The various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work show an exceptional eye for how colour works and how to maximise its effects.

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I am absolutely crazy about this book. I mean from the looks of things this is going to be a one and done limited series and while I understand why that is it still makes me sad because these characters have found a place within me I didn’t know I had room for. There’s still two more issues to go so I'm looking forward to seeing how this ultimately plays out. But with such good, solid, strong writing and phenomenal characterisation and these classic comic style interiors really make this something extraordinary.