Who is Scarlett? Where did she come from? Why does she behave the way she does? These are all questions I’ve had since my first Creepy Scarlett story, and this issue provides some of those very answers.
Scarlett was always a troublemaker even as a little girl. Young Scarlett is as cute as she is mischievous. Her relationships both with Father Calvin and Billy the groundskeeper as her adoptive family are heartwarming and difficult to see since we know their fate. The origins for her various traits such as her choices of dress, Mr. Ted, and her candy obsession are explained concisely and make those qualities of hers stand out and, in some cases, become something much more important than the joke they’ve been in previous issues.
As White As Snow contains solid art through and through and makes use of an interesting coloring style to denote that this story takes place as a flashback. The issue is in black and white with certain items colored such as Scarlett’s eyes and Mr. Ted’s scarf to stand out against the background. This immediately draws the eye to the colored sections of the page and highlights important character qualities and setting details.
The issue does have two shortcomings. The first is it is relatively short, coming in at 15 pages of story. It’s a concise and well-told tale, but as a reader I wished a few extra pages of young Scarlett’s sugar-filled rampage through Sunnyville were included just to bump it over the 20-page mark. The other is that the issue’s events are told out of order but without a solid set of transition scenes to break it up and make the timeline easier to understand.
Tensions are rising by the end of Part One with a hair-raising reminder of what’s to come. By the end of this first half of As White As Snow, I feel I understand Scarlett a lot better as a person, but there are still a few answers I’d like to get, which I’ll undoubtedly have to wait until Part Two to find out the rest of the secrets of the girl who guard the graveyard.
Issues of Creepy Scarlett can be purchased through DriveThruComics, and for more information you can visit the comics’ home site.
