Dark Corners
Written & Illustrated by Caitlin Plovnick, Jeff Lok, Mario Van Buren and Denis St. John, with Steve Bissette and John Nicoll
Published by I Know Joe Kimpel
The crew at I Know Joe Kimpel has been pushing out their four-square anthology books for a while now, and I’ve enjoyed every one of them. Minicomics aren’t exactly my forte, because I just don’t have the time to pursue them like I should (and because many I’ve sampled have been amateur in too many respects), but I’ve reached the point where I’m honestly looking forward to their latest anthology offering.
The most recent, Dark Corners, marks the group’s first major foray into horror comics, and the first of their four-square books wrapped around a single theme. Of course, not being a horror fan, per se, I came to the book with a little trepidation.
Well, the Joe Kimpel crew hasn’t completely turned me around on horror, but they’ve at least acquitted themselves professionally. Caitlin Plovnik’s strip deals with an imaginary friend and a twist ending that I’m not sure how to read. One reading doesn’t work for me at all, but the other kind of does. The story’s a little under-drawn, but not to the point that it’s distracting. Solid piece, if I’m reading the ending correctly.
Mario Van Buren follows with the second installment of “Jenny, the Marsh.” Of course, I haven’t read part one, so take anything I say with a grain of salt. Mario’s strip is the best drawn strip in the book, employing an open, bigfoot style for the characters. However, Van Buren layers on the shadows to amp up the atmosphere for Jenny’s cornfield encounter, and the dreamy, reality-challenged nature of the vision adds a haunting element.
“Of the Matters that Occurred on the Road to Carlyle County,” by Jeff Lok, is a peculiar beast. The art is cartoony, with large areas of cross-hatching to add depth and shadow, and the character designs are great, totally adorable and a nice contrast to the story’s dark tone. That said, the story meanders too much, using five panels where two would suffice. Rather than building the moment, I found myself struggling to keep my attention on the pages.
The final piece, Dennis St. John’s, is the most traditionally horror-oriented. Losing teeth, fangs, vomit, creepy sexual encounters, etc., not really my thing, but I can see where others might find it creepier than I do. The art’s pretty solid, a little loose and sloppy, but much better than most other minicomics.
Steve Bissette, the Swamp Thing and Tyrant dude, provides interior illustrations between each of the stories, and those are really cool.
