Black Stars Above #2 is out 12/18/2019. — **Black Stars Above #2** is out 12/18/2019.

By Zack Quaintance — Through two issues, Black Stars Above has quickly established itself as a comic unlike any other. Admittedly, this sounds cliche — and, to be sure, a case can be made that the vast majority of creator-owned comics are wholly unique — but Black Stars Above is singular to the extent that I struggle to find even a vague point of comparison with any comic that has come before.

As those who read the excellent debut issue already know, this is a series that essentially blends historical fiction from an under-explored setting — it is the late 1880s and our lead character is in an isolated part of Canadian wilderness, replete with boundless snowy landscapes, dark woods, and trapping lines. That is all perhaps enough to set this book apart, but the story is also one of cosmic, naturalistic horror, played out in subtle and ominous ways. The end combination of all this is a new series that feels as fresh as it does horrifying, ground in reality yet able to take us to darkly fantastical places.

Phew. That’s a great basis for a series, and so Black Stars Above #2 was a book I found myself opening with a high level of expectations. Concept-aside, I had also found the first issue to be impeccably-executed with a high level of craft. Artist Jenna Cha (colored in this book by Brad Simpson) in particular did wonderful things with close-ups and cramped visual spaces to convey a feeling I’d describe as isolated claustrophobia, which is made all the more impressive given the spacious nature of the Canadian wilderness. The majority of the debut issue contained realistic imagery, including the insides of a family cabin, a trek through swirling snow, inset panels of vital equipment, etc., all of which led up to punctuated reveal of the type of dark cosmic imagery that we can perhaps expect more of moving forward.

Black Stars Above #2 opens with a return to the naturalistic, with our hero questioning whether the chilling imagery from the end of the first chapter was actually a dream. There is an acute dichotomy within this second chapter, wherein the imagery is mostly realistic while the narrative prose (played out via journaling) raises questions. As our protagonist writes, she wonders about grand questions, about man versus nature, about the pull of home, about where the harried mind ends and the fuzzy snow swept landscape begins. Whereas I was most taken with the artwork of the first issue, what impressed me most about the second installment was the prose.

To be sure, the artwork was just as strong if not stronger as what we saw in the debut, but the prose here feels newly-free of its duties to orient the reader and dole out exposition, as is sometimes the case in a second issue. Writer Lonnie Nadler puts forth a script rich with poetic flourishes that also drive the story. There is great strength in the ideas — our hero contemplates universal questions about lineage and perseverance and nature — and it’s all laid out so poetically that it feels almost real. It is at times tempting to forget that this is fiction at all, to wonder if Nadler has perhaps culled his character from an actual journal, so authentic are her concerns and thoughts and world. And they’re all combined here with existential musings, with wondering about things such as if the world was meant for knowing or if our realities are shaped from within. Powerful stuff, to be sure.

But Nadler also knows when to back-off, when to transition from a 9-panel grid page with a caption in nearly every segment, to a nigh-silent, sweeping vista of vast and infinite snows. When to take the words away and make the centerpiece of a page a ghastly jellyfish creature pulled from a river of dead fish with a long and crooked stick (just one example).

The last quality of this second issue that I think warrants exploration is how the book layers its points of interest. It would, perhaps, be enough to make survival in this icy wilderness while worrying about existentialism the central conflict. Hell, the film The Revenant did just that, but this comic is not content to stop there. I don’t want to spoil anything, but each time I thought I had the ideas in this issue wrested into a place where I could start to guess what was coming or why, the creative team added a new concept. An outline in the swirling snow, or a wooden box that demanded attention.

The end result is as I said at the beginning a singular comic that continues to blend multiple ideas that would set any other comic apart on their own merits, but that combined add up to something truly special.

Overall: In Black Stars Above #2, this book continues to establish as a truly singular comic. Whenever I have this book understood, the talented creators add another layer to their survivalist cosmic horror story, resulting in a layered and complex tale that feels truly special. 9.8/10

Black Stars Above #2
Writer: Lonnie Nadler
Artist: Jenna Cha
Colorist: Brad Simpson
Letterer: Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou
Publisher: Vault Comics
Price: $3.99

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Zack Quaintance is a tech reporter by day and freelance writer by night/weekend. He Tweets compulsively about storytelling and comics as Comics Bookcase.