REVIEW: It Eats What It Feeds #2
It Eats What It Feeds #2 is out August 19, 2020.
By Jacob Cordas — The best gothic romances are atmospheric The narratives will drift by on a layer of fog, haunting you less by what is said than what isn’t. The genre is about frightening you with implications, and It Eats What It Feeds #2 understands that perfectly.
The art by Gabriel Iumazark (The Angler) is what I would describe as ethereal manga. You can feel the Japanese influence most heavily with the line work on the bodies. The way chins point, the lines that form a shoulder, the way joints bend — it all has the feel of manga but run through a hazy, half-remembered filter.
I love the lack of clarity given to the backgrounds. Often panels will have backdrops of grays, greens and blacks. It makes each moment feel less terrestrial. It accentuates the tone, making even small moments feel immortal.
The writing by Max Hoven and Aaron Crow (the team behind Fall Peak) perfectly leans into this. They smartly leave multiple pages near silent letting the atmosphere carry the story. The beats of the narrative are familiar, but by letting it quietly play out, we are given a stronger story than any description can do justice.
The writing is maybe slightly less effective in introducing the character, Bug, but only at how clearly defined his fate is. You rarely get to see a character so clearly destined to die. It might as well be tattooed across his forehead. The writing around him is great, but his character feels like too well worn for such a well-told story.
The one thing that really took me out of this comic though is the lettering. I don’t know who handled this. There is no letterer credit in the review comic I had, and it shows in the quality of the lettering. The speech boxes are often too big, or improperly divided, which weakens certain beats. This issue doesn’t have the problem the first one did, where certain text boxes aren’t lined up properly, but it still struggles.
Lettering is the editing of comic books: you don’t notice it when it is done well, but you can always tell when it is done…not so well. And it just isn’t done well here. The comic is still over-archingly a delight though. It still all comes together to make a specific story that I enjoyed reading. I look forward to what this team does next - as long as they hire a letterer.
Overall: It Eats What It Feeds #2 is a solid continuation of a miniseries that stumbles a bit with the technical elements. With that said though, it is still a joy to read. 8.0/10
It Eats What It Feeds #2
It Eats What It Feeds #2
Writer: Max Hoven and Aaron Crow
Artist: Gabriel Iumazark
Publisher: Scout Comics
Cost: $3.99
A few weeks into his new job, Kenny has completely fallen for Francois. He spends his days caring for her property and sliding raw meat through the attic door, while spending his nights tending to Francois' needs in the bedroom. But late one evening, Francois' illness gives rise to a painful episode, leading her to desperately send Kenny on a mysterious errand to a rugged bayou bar. What secret elixirs lie at the bar? Does Francois' illness connect to what lurks behind that attic door?
Release Date: August 19, 2020
Read more great comic book reviews here!
My name is Jacob Cordas (@jacweasel) and I am not qualified to write this.
