Echoes

Written by: 

Joshua Hale Fialkov 

Illustrated by: 

Rahsan Ekedal
Released by: 

Minotaur Press

Minotaur is the dark love-child of Top Cow and Image... a long dead imprint recently reanimated in the form of their new horror label. Mind you they haven't officially called it their horror label. They use the phrasing "darker and more nuanced", but I personally think that's redundant, as Top Cow with titles like; The Darkness & Witchblade, is already a pretty dark universe as it is. Anyway, sorry about that history lesson, Echoes is one of Minotaur's re-launch titles. A somber gray & white family affair, steeped in dementia & shaded in serial murder.  

It opens with a troubled man named Brian visiting his father on his deathbed in the cold tomb of the hospital, just after hearing his child's heartbeat for the very first time. As his father starts to slip behind the veil he urges Brian to check the crawlspace in the basement of their old home, the one at 1339 Haymaker. Wide-eyed he keeps insisting, and then immediately passes on. Not wanting to let his father down in death, a grief stricken Brian is compelled to set off right away to honor his father's dying wish. He heads back to the old, empty, house he grew up in. Abandoned by everything but it's run-down furniture; a dusty, threadbare graveyard to the memory's it once housed.  As his anxiety comes to a boil, Brian's reality starts to crack. He's seeing things. His schizophrenia which can be kept in check with the right medication is invading.  His burdened mind is starting to collapse under the weight of the stress of his father's death, and the anxiety over the birth of his new child. His alarm keeps buzzing to remind him. It's his wife calling.  It's time to take his pill. Clozapine to be exact. Sadly the faucet only leaks out a murky, undrinkable sludge.  Running out of time and reality, he starts to look for the basement, for the crawl space... for the dark and evil things hidden there. Tools of his father's secret trade... knives.... knives and.... porno, nudie magazines.  He laughs, relieved, and lays down on his fathers other secret; a bed of children's bones, surrounding a box. 

He pulls open it's lid and sees hundreds of them staring out at him. 

Dolls made from the flesh, and hair, and bones of the girls they were molded in memory of.  His father buried this secret behind a wall, and kept it till his last breath... but Brian isn't so lucky. 

That's the set-up!!  This is only the first fucking issue!!  I just picked the second one up, and I can't wait to crack it's tiny, little, stapled spine!! I have always been a huge fan of black and white art, (remember the "Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark" trilogy?) I feel a lot of detail is lost in the coloring process, Whether it's true or not; this is a fine example of visual storytelling. Detailed, excellent use of shading and gray tones that perfectly compliment it's melancholy mood. The way Ekedal (Creepy, The Cleaners, & Warhammer) illustrates eyes is stunning.  You can see the horror, the pain, the sadness, visibly expressed in every pupil. The series wouldn't be nearly as dreary if it were done in full color.  

I found myself captivated by Joshua Hale Fialkov's brooding storyline.  Every panel serves to set the mood. Known for his work on "The Crazies: Motion Comic" which he also worked with Ekedal on, "Alibi" and "Elk's Run"; both of which are getting the cinematic treatment... "Tumor" the first comic ever available on Amazon Kindle, and his Wildstorm one-shot "Friday the 13th: The Abuser & The Abused"; Fialkov is really starting to make a name for himself in this medium.  It seems, and this is just pure conjecture, that he's making the transition from film to comics. Either way; Echoes will have you kneeling on cracked bones, & begging for more by the end of the first issue. Whether it's an all out horror story, or a psychological thriller (a term I personally hate); I for one can't fucking wait to find out what dark & gloomy road this 5 part mini-series is headed down.  While it's unclear which path this comic will take, one can certainly speculate.  I'll give an update once I read some more, though I will say; this made my pull-list in just one issue... something that rarely happens. 

With that, happy reading!
Krys the comic chick signing out :)