Cullen Bunn knows how to tell a story in a way that twists and turns, that leaves you never knowing exactly what will happen next. I left the last issue thinking “Here’s a new villain” and by the end of this issue, I have no idea who is good and bad. Not only in the course of Issue #14 has he created a handful of complex characters, but he has expanded the scope of the world of Harrow County by leaps and bounds. I feel like after turning every corner, nothing will ever be the same. In this way Cullen Bunn has created something on par with Mind MGMT, Saga, Preacher, Harry Potter, Avatar the Last Airbender, and the original Star Wars trilogy. He’s taken the foundation of mythmaking and presented it to us in a fable-esque horror story packaging that is original and terrifying.
I don’t even know where to begin to give you a synopsis of this issue’s story without ruining the joy of reading it. This issue is all nuance, every page reveals a new detail while keeping the mystery under wraps. What exactly is going on and who is this new group of people who claim to be Emmy’s family? Oops! I gave a little bit away, but that seems to be the continuing theme of this story: family. Who is family, what does family mean in a world like this, and just how dangerous can family get when push comes to shove? All of it, every time, comes back to family for Emmy, the witch and controller of haints.
Curiosity pushes her forward to find out more about herself, but Bunn lets us in on some terrible information she doesn’t know about that . . . seriously, I can’t wait for next month’s issue. It’s going to drive me out of my mind.
Tyler Crook’s artwork is unimaginably haunting with its childlike, watercolor-styled template. It’s almost like Crook and Bunn sat down and decided that every image should be as hunting and unnerving as Edvard Munch’s The Scream. True, he didn’t use a watercolor-styled approach, but that same childlike, nightmarish quality hovers and circles the world of Harrow County.
Read this book… find the graphic novels and let this world envelop you. It’s well worth it.
