By Jacob Cordas — Abuse is a cycle that you need to choose to end. When unmanaged, untreated, unexamined, it burns and boils your insides. It transforms you into something you aren’t. Or at least weren’t. You become the hand that hits. You become the creature that lingers.

You become the monster.

I Walk With Monsters #1 is a story dedicated to this kind of bruising the soul. It’s an intimate, haunting horror take on the difficulties of surviving. It’s equal parts beautiful and beastly, a comic that makes you wonder what’s moving in the shadows. And absolutely the required reading of this week.

The narrative is nonlinear but with the confidence not normally afforded the trope in this medium. Here it doesn’t exist to obscure basic narrative elements but to heighten every moment. Every jump through time has a character, narrative, thematic and tension purposes. It goes the extra mile to have clear visual language signifying the time shifts, with the past having a sickly yellow over it.

From the very moments the comic opens, it is clear that every element has been so well considered. The page is drawn so well by Sally Cantirino (Last Song, We Have To Go Back). The line work has a sketchy yet oppressive quality. The emotions of the characters comes through with effortless showing a bound woman with an almost snide confidence and an unconfident killer attempting to be coy. Even the removal of the eyes in this page is pitch perfect as well to make a monster of a man immediately.

The coloring by Dearbhla Kelly (Red Sonja, Pantomime) is endlessly eerie. They use muted earth tones to ground the page with blacks on the edges threatening to overwhelm. A few bright moments on the page can be found in the clothing but it is the same kind of brightness, the same colors - hinting at the turn to come.

The lettering by Andworld Design (Girl Over Paris, Gold Medal Rabbit) here is minor but key. The single bit of speech is placed firmly over the shoulder of the killer. It immediately lets us in on the power and confidence of Jacey in the face of the killer. And making sure to use a simple font makes her dialogue feel far flatter and more grounded.

We arrive, finally, at the writer, Paul Cornell (Doctor Who, Captain Britain and MI: 13). Here he has one single line and instantly captures everything he needs to. It’s a perfect opening line, a perfect characterization line and a perfect way to imply so much of what is to come.

How the comic will unfold, how the horror will haunt the reader, how it will engage with its abuse elements is still up in the air. What I do know is I Walk With Monsters #1 is a phenomenal first issue that immediately leaves me with confidence that it can pull off whatever it sets its mind to.

Overall: I Walk With Monsters #1 is a perfect first issue that demands to be read. From the first page, it does everything right and never slips up after it. 9/10

REVIEW: I Walk With Monsters #1

I Walk With Monsters #1
Writer: Paul Cornell
Artist: Sally Cantirino
Colorist: Dearbhla Kelly
Letterer: Andworld Design
Publisher: Vault Comics
Price: $3.99
In Jacey’s past is the Important Man who took away her brother. Now Jacey has David, who sometimes transforms into a terrifying beast. Together, they’ve found a way to live to hunt, sniffing out men who prey on the vulnerable. But Jacey and David are about to run into the Important Man again. From Paul Cornell (Wolverine, Doctor Who, Elementary) and Sally Cantirino (Last Song, We Have To Go Back) comes a haunting story about the monsters that walk beside us all, and sometimes lurk within.
Release Date: Nov 11, 2020
Buy It Digitally: I Walk With Monsters #1