Tyler Jenkins’ front cover of the new Dark Horse series, Barstow, is as strange as you might expect it to be, and the interior artwork isn’t any more settling. Set in the town of the same name, this first issue sets up a mystery mashed with multiple storylines that are just plain weird and horrific.
When a car flips over while driving out of our titular town, two men walk away mostly unscathed. The driver, scared out of his mind, runs in one direction while the other man – who was locked in the trunk of the car a few moments earlier – pulls himself together enough to walk away, as well.
Special FBI Agent Miranda Diaz has come to Barstow to investigate a missing agent. After getting an update from Sheriff Papa Dodd and town CSI/Medical Examiner Starr, the comic jumps to some of the other residents of Barstow: Eli and Inola are lovers living in a trailer, and there’s also a dance teacher who summons demons to feed on people. We are barely scratching the surface in Barstow.
Barstow’s fish-out-of-water story seems to be a hybrid of Twin Peaks and (the original) Wicker Man, albeit in a much less green setting. The McHenrys’ use of a desert town and these weird, out-there characters subverts the rumbling under the surface that’s typical in small-town stories. The residents of Barstow seem to be letting their freak flags fly in their own peculiar way. The fantastic thing with stories like Barstow is the garden of characters it creates with its colorful residents. Diaz’s business attire makes her stick out like a sore thumb in comparison to Starr’s outfit.
Tyler Jenkins’ art is unsettling and has the potential to get more disturbing as the story goes on. The font letterer Justin Birch uses aids in this horror. The seeds of these eventual crossing storylines are being planted, and the nightmare is just beginning for some of these characters. If the cliffhanger shows us anything, Diaz’s investigation will bring out more of these strange individuals.
If strange, small-town stories are your thing, pick up Dark Horse’s Barstow today.
Creative Team: David Ian McKendry (writer), Rebekah McKendry (writer), Tyler Jenkins (artist), Justin Birch (letterer)
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Click here to purchase.
