Warning: you may not want to read “Winnebago Graveyard” #2 right before you go to bed. Seriously. Don’t do it. This book’s debut issue may have featured some far more gruesome panels, but the second chapter is tension packed and even creepier still.
Written by Steve NilesCover by Alison Samson
Illustrated and Designed by Alison Samson
Colored by Stéphane Paitreau
Lettered by Aditya BidikarPursued by cultists, Christine, Dan, and Bobby must run through the night to stay alive.
The plot for “Winnebago Graveyard” is exceedingly simple. An unwitting family on vacation (Christine, Dan and Bobby) visits a road-side carnival only to have their RV stolen. With no cell phones, no luggage and no one to turn to, they walk into town for help, arriving after dark. It’s spooky and all but deserted. Not even the grumpy lone cop offers any assistance, merely suggesting he’ll file a report at some unspecified time in the future. Next, the motel keeper is equally terse and unhelpful. “Clean towels are in the hallway,” she says. Everyone does their best to try and stay positive, but when a bunch of torch-wielding hooded figures start doing who-knows-what right outside their motel window, they decide it’s time to run.
Good call. I would have done the same. In a heart beat.
Honestly, it’s refreshing to see protagonists in a horror story who aren’t total idiots. Christine, Dan and Bobby may be unlucky, but they’re not gonna be sitting ducks.
From the very first panel (which throws us right into the action), the barren, lifeless town that illustrator Alison Samson and colorist Stéphane Paitreau present is weirdly sinister and unnerving. Paitreau’s high contrast cool and warm tones create a vivid, high-tension dynamic that immediately underpins every frame. Dank twilight blues and deep, ominous purples stand in stark opposition to hot, fiery yellows and bright, bloody reds that practically shriek. There is no nuance here, Paitreau seems to say, just the constant pull and strain of light versus shadow and cool versus warmth.
I would say “good vs. evil,” but nothing in this town seems even remotely good.
In fact, everything is askew, as though we’re watching events unfold reflected in a funhouse mirror. Even the borders and line’s that separate the books panels come together at quirky angles, as though the pages themselves are dilapidated, slowly collapsing beneath their own rotted weight. Within these ad hoc shapes, architectural lines that should be straight and offer some solidity (window frames, door jambs, walls) are slightly bowed and intersect at odd, unstable angles. Illustrator Samson’s perspectives, too, are equally quirky and slanted. She favors high angles, in particular, making the characters seemed trapped or boxed in – physically, by each page’s off kilter, restrictive panels and emotionally, by a lack of viable choices.
Taken together, it all spells doom. Racing against the night, as the solicit text suggests and good horror stories imply.
Okay, but where does the real creepiness come from? Well, aside from Samson’s and Paitreau’s constant visual reminders that something isn’t right, way back in the first scene of issue #1 we witnessed a horrifically unsettling act by a group of shadowy, hooded figures and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that these are the exact same cultists. So when one them points up at the motel window where Dan and Christine watch their menacing ritual from behind a curtain, it’s enough to set off a frantic chase, first through the motel halls, then through a window and off the roof, then off into the night, cowering under some mail boxes.
Again, it’s a very simple, no frills progression, but it’s a testament to writer Steve Niles and his confidence in the visual team that he trusts them to pull it all off with very little dialogue or written description. Throughout the last 12 pages (fully half of the book), there are barely 100 words in total – just Samson’s and Paitreau’s brilliantly rendered images – and it’s utterly gripping. The visual flow is nearly perfect, utilizing a rhythm of small and large panels, both vertically oriented and horizontal (but never with true right angles), that continuously guides your eye from beat to beat with urgent trepidation.
Continued belowWe know what these creepy cultists are capable of and we dread the moment our eyes come across the frightful, blood-spattered image their latest handiwork.
There is blood, indeed, but probably not in the way that you’re thinking. Either way, understand this: the last three pages are creepy as hell, concluding with a penultimate image that will stand your hair on end, breathlessly awaiting whatever happens next.
Final Verdict: 9.1 – “Winnebago Graveyard” #1 marked a gruesome debut, but the second issue is creepier still and even more tension filled. With a brilliant visual rhythm that effortlessly guides your eye from beat to beat and scene to scene, it will be interesting to see how subsequent issues heighten the stakes even further.
