Horror comes in many forms, but great horror sticks with you long after you’ve finished, haunting both waking hours as well as dreams, if you’re lucky. The Eyrie is a wonderful addition to the horror world, with stark images of black-and-white creatures that one definitely never wants to meet.
Rebecca is an American photographer working for a well-known magazine. She takes a job overseas in a small town in Sussex. Out of her comfort zone, Rebecca runs into the typical horror clichés: strange townsfolk, a creepy house she stays in, finding an unusual antique object, and those “animals” in the field after dark.
But, where cliché has the possibility of running a horror graphic novel into the ground, Thom Burgess (writer) takes the trite and twists it just enough to give it life of its own, sending it to the readers with plenty of frights. This 40+ page graphic novel is just short enough that it’s hard to discuss too much without giving spoilers, and this is not one that needs to be spoiled. Suffice it to say, Burgess gives us explanations for everything that happens, right down to the creatures themselves. The flashbacks leading up to the end for me were the most enjoyable portion of the story, along with the heart-pounding ending. I may have liked to see a little more lead up to the horror (i.e., getting to know Rebecca just a tad more), but the pacing of the graphic novel does make it a page-turner.
Barney Bodoano (art) does a beautiful job bringing the story to life. It seems that horror comics / graphic novels have taken to creating art that is scratchy rather than clear and in black and white, and Bodoano provides just that here, which really lends to the setting and the frights. The creatures are wonderfully drawn; I wouldn’t mind having art of them on the wall to scare away visitors and lend to nightmares. The drawing complements the story in the perfect manner.
If you want a fast read with fun, terrifying creatures, The Eyrie is just the graphic novel for you. I would love to see more compilations between Burgess and Bodoano in the future, and I definitely look forward to any work either of them are part of.
