Summary: A young couple, Berenice and Nathan, move into an old Gothic mansion so that Matt can finish his novel while enveloped in the proper atmosphere. But while for Nathan this is a fantastic experience Berenice is becoming more and more troubled as being sensitive to the supernatural she feels as if the house is...awakening. Enter Deadman, who is attracted to the house after hearing an undeniable plea for help on the ethereal plain...but once he enters the mansion he finds that he cannot leave. It's obviously a trap...but for who?

Plot: Sarah Vaughn, the author of my friend Lexi's favorite book Alex+Ada, is a writer known for her intensely introspective plots full of rich, well developed interpersonal relationships and she certainly brings that here to Deadman. And with the page count that comes with the Prestige Format from DC she has a lot of room to fill, and she does; she takes her time slowly introducing the cast of characters(and allowing them to develop), she establishes a beautifully eerie mood just dripping with suspense and intrigue and then gives us just enough action to keep us on our toes. After tearing through this I quickly handed it off to another friend of mine whom sadly only made it ten pages into it before commenting, "Where's the gore? There's nothing scary here." and ostensibly he is correct; there is no gore, no monster, nothing shocking...but that doesn't mean it isn't a great horror book. In fact, much of its appeal to me is just how akin this feels to the works of such great, classic horror writers as Marry Shelley and Sheridan Le Fanu with it's complex, realistic characterizations and emotional intrigue Sarah Vaughn's Deadman is a perfect example of horror.
    "But how can that be?" you say, "How is it horror with out the blood and guts?" and to that I say you have a grave misconception of the genre of horror and what it can be. Horror isn't all blades flashing in the night and  monsters lurking in the shadows just waiting to splash you with buckets of blood, it's larger than that; it's an entire genre of fiction whose purpose is to provoke a negative reaction from its audience. True, that reaction can be a scream of fright but it can also be as subtle as a slight shiver up your spine, a contraction of your facial features into a grimace, a tightening of your grip or as small as a slight widening of your eyes. Horror is a convocation for that seldom used, primal fight or flight instinct still lurking in the back of your brain, that prehistoric  holdover from before we became civil beasts. Horror, at it's best, makes us think, confronts us with ideas we might rather ignore, challenges our preconceptions of everyday life and shakes us out of our warm complacency, but unlike pure Science Fiction which tends to evoke a sense of hopefulness horror asks those questions of us and presents the darker answers. Horror can be blood and guts, and if that's what you want there's plenty to find but it can also be more than that and unfortunately these days the horror story that strives for that is a much rarer beast which is why Vaughn's work here is all the more fascinating. 
        Vaughn's Deadman is full of poignant back stories that really make you feel for the people she's introducing us to, and the ominous sense of brooding she creates with her slow narration really makes you feel Berenice's dread that the old house is waking up. And as a fan of DC's old, 70's horror anthologies I love that she brings back the title The Dark Mansion of Forbidden Love  which although created as a short lived companion to Secrets of the Sinister House I always felt it was the superior book because it did strive to be different than the schlocky B-Movie horror stories of its brethren. And now, after all that gushing above I have to bring up one negative...and that's the fact that Deadman almost feels like an afterthought here; although his awkward first introduction to Berenice was fantastic, his battle with the living shadow that keep slowly building behind Berenice made that presence somewhat cheaper. It went from an unknowable, ominous threat to something you could punch and drive away which was much more interesting. I think the story would have been that much stronger if it were allowed to be its own thing...but truth be told that's how my favorite Deadman stories usually are as well; I tend to love the ones where he's more of an observer than active participant so I'm hoping that happens here in the future with Deadman taking more of the back seat to the other characters.

Art: Artist Lan Medina of Fables fame and colorist Jose Villarrubia use all 48 pages of art to create a setting that would make the old Hammer Horror guys swoon. It's hard to talk about one or the other in terms of praising the art as both are so complimentary in making the house feel like it's own characters. The detail that Medina includes in each scene make it look like it was actually a place that was lived in with its own sense of history while Villarrubia's subtle colorwork gives the whole thing a look that is reminiscent of an old, oil based painting with it's muted colors and deep, dark, inky shadows and wonderful textures. Both artists are obviously skilled but together they create a whole that is truly greater than its parts.

Conclusion: This slow burning Gothic tale is a true breath of fresh air, there really isn't a book like it out there right now and its very existence is cause for celebration and hope that DC does more like this...although if you were hoping for fistacuffs and action you best look elsewhere.

Grade: 9.5/10
    

Summary: Meet Loma, an Avian from the planet Meta, enamored with the alien poet/fugitive Rac Shade she steels his fabled madness vest and travels to Earth(the Blue Planet) to break away from her old life and experience big feelings only life on Earth in the body of teenage coma patient Megan isn't exactly what she planned on. 

Plot: I never read Peter Milligan's run on the character but after reading this I think that's a mistake I really need to rectify.  In the first issue of Shade the Changing Girl Castellucci really manages to bring to life two truly fascinating characters in Loma and Megan(the girl she possesses with the Madness Vest). Neither one is a cookie cutter creation; Loma owes money to "bad men" has multiple lovers and uses sex to attain her own ends while Megan is a girl whose parents and "friends" seem thrown into despair when they find out she's awoken from her coma. It's fresh, fast paced and the mysteries of why Megan was in a coma and why Loma  wanted to escape so badly are tantalizing and promise a lot of fun to come in future issues. About the only drawback is that the plot is so manic that although the characters are introduced and immediately interesting they don't have a lot of room to really streatch out their legs and show us a lot of who they are, but hey I'm confident that'll come later. 

Art: If you're a fan of Andy Warhol or the music videos for Dan Deacon songs (seriously check that link!) then you're going to love Zarcone’s art. There's a serious surrealist streak that although it occasionally makes you have to slow down and really go over it all again to catch the narrative truly fits the tone of the book. It's perplexing to look at at times, and definitely isn't traditionally comic-booky, but it's enjoyable to look at in and of itself even seperate from its ability to tell the story at hand so it's worth the effort to follow. 

Conclusion: The Young Animal imprint continues to really bring the thunder in terms of providing new and refreshing comic book experiences with the addition of Shade the Changing Girl. I don't think I'm a dangerous human yet, but I may be when these books are done with me.


Grade:8.5/10