“Harrow County” delivers its most powerful arc yet, “Dark Times A’Coming.”
“Dark Times A’Coming”Written by Cullen Bunn
Illustrated by Tyler CrookThings are heating up in this supernatural fantasy as young heroine Emmy Crawford prepares to face off against old foes in the horror-plagued town of Harrow County. Something evil has returned from the grave and joins forces with Emmy’s wicked family for a brewing monster war! Will she be able to protect her home and herself alone, or will Emmy need to gather some allies in order to defeat this evil once and for all in this coming-of-age tale?
I recently saw someone online asking what kind of horror “Harrow County” is. Is it a dark fairy tale? A creepy, atmospheric piece? Gory horror? The answer is, of course, ‘Yes.’
Right from its first issue, “Harrow County” impressed me with its range. It could be cute at times, like when Emmy befriends a calf affectionately called ‘Shakey’; other times it could be creepy, like when Emmy finds a boy’s skin, bloody and reeking, hanging on twisted thorns; and it could go to dark emotional places too, like when Emmy’s father tries to strangle her.
Consequences matter in “Harrow County.” And now, with so many issues as its foundation, consequences matter more than ever. When things go wrong (and do they ever go wrong in this arc), the weight of that material comes crashing down in spectacular fashion.
#25 begins with Kammi, Emmy’s twin, buried alive. The last time we saw her she was dragged into the earth by Hester Beck’s corpse. That was seventeen issues ago, so Bunn and Crook invest a few pages in making us feel what that time has been like for her. After all, much of what’s to follow is fueled by her rage at being abandoned and buried by her sister.
As much as Kammi calls herself Hester reborn, it’s sequences like this that remind us whatever power the two share, Kammi is a separate entity with her own wants and needs and fears, and despite how monstrously she behaved back in the “Twice Told” arc, these aspects of her are very human. And it’s very important to introduce her as very human, because everything Kammi does next is so monstrously inhuman.
OK, I’m delving into spoiler territory now. A lot of characters die in this arc. I mean, if you set loose someone like Kammi, there’re going to be casualties. But characters don’t just die in this arc—they are ruined and then die. Some fundamental part of the character is used against them. It’s not the death, but in the ruination that the true horror lies.
Take Emmy’s father for example. Kammi could have easily killed him and it still would have hurt Emmy just as badly, but instead Kammi chooses to kill him while pretending to be Emmy. Emmy’s father dies thinking his daughter killed him and that he deserved it. Kammi took the thing he was most ashamed of, that he had once tried to strangle Emmy to death, and uses it against him. He dies a ruined man.
The skinless boy, in his dedication to Emmy, is forced to face his worst nightmare and run through a tangled of thorns, shredding himself to bits in the process. And after all of that, he’s rewarded with this moment from Emmy.
And finally, when he’s killed, he’s discarded like a thing, not even a person, something that has haunted him ever since issue #9. He’s merely Kammi’s plaything.
Obviously this is a gory moment, but it’s not cheap gore. Bunn and Crook use gore very carefully so that when these moments happen, the gore is a supporting element to some other horror. The skinless boy doesn’t just die in a gory fashion, he’s stripped of his human dignity.
It’s not just the characters that get twisted in this arc either. Take something as simple as the path to Mason’s Hollow. When we were introduced to it back in issue #10, it was a thing of beauty, with Emmy and Bernice walking along, happily singing, while the broken colored glass fragments in the earth glittered in the sunlight. Here, Kammi raises the glass from the earth and shreds the residents of Mason’s Hollow with it. She can bring ruin to anything.
But the biggest violation was saved for Emmy herself, and part of the reason it was such a violation was because Kammi didn’t force the situation, instead she made Emmy desperate enough to make a terrible choice. I’m talking, of course, about the moment Emmy eats Kammi’s corpse.
I love it when a story deliberately sets up a taboo, a line in the sand the characters cannot cross, and then crosses it anyway. It’s when the most exciting stuff happens. Bunn has been doing this by increments for a while now, with smaller, more forgivable stuff (like recreating Luke’s uncle in #20), and that’s part of why something as extreme as Emmy cannibalizing her sister can work without it feeling unnatural or out of character.
Actually, that’s what the most impressive feat of this arc was in my eyes—we get to this moment and don’t think, ‘The Emmy I know and love is gone.’ She’s still there and still sympathetic, and her choice absolutely makes sense, even as abhorrent as it is. At no point could I feel the hands of the author pushing or twisting Emmy to this moment. This moment works, because it was earned inch by inch over the preceding twenty-seven issues.
OK, let’s jump topics because I want to draw attention to some specific elements of Crook’s craft here. I’ve mentioned in the past how much I love his approach to lettering, but I want to take a moment to draw particular attention to a few specific elements I found particularly effective in this arc.
Ah, those lopsided, lumpy word balloons! Crook has never been afraid to use this ‘imperfect’ approach to express character. They’re very rarely symmetrical, but usually their asymmetry is appealing. However, he can push that asymmetry and lumpiness to express a chaotic mind. In “Dark Times A’Coming” he uses this to powerful effect to show character change. With Bernice, her word balloons gain a rougher edge, the text shrinks, and the words shift to wavy lines of text to indicate waning strength. Meanwhile Kammi’s word balloons gain a tremble in their line, like her voice is vibrating, indicating a heightened emotional state taking over like madness. Crook’s able to milk so much extra nuance out of the characters’ voices.
Then there’re his sounds effects, which are so much a part of the art. They don’t have that ‘stuck on’ look that sounds effects can often have. Rather, the sound is so much a part of the objects and actions, they become visual onomatopoeia—without reading the words, you know what the sound is at a glance, and you know the direction of the sound, and how strong the force is behind it, whether it is a wet or dry sound, sharp or dull. He’s able to describe the sound visually with such precision that the sounds could practically be written in a dingbat font and they’d still work. And since the sound effects ‘read’ before you literally read them, they function with much more immediacy, processed on an emotional level before their mechanical level.
Before I wrap up this review, I want to talk about Bernice. She was the highlight of this arc for me. In the previous arc, “Hedge Magic,” she went up against Emmy and was able to hold her ground, but here she goes up against Kammi and it was fantastic to see what she can do when she doesn’t hold back. No, she can’t defeat Kammi, but she can make her hurt.
Continued belowAnd this fight has major consequences for Bernice. Her grandfather Riah was one of the Harrow County residents created by Hester Beck, and when the magic that created him comes undone, so does he. As for Bernice, she’s at least a quarter haint herself, and the two different aspects of herself have been set against each other. Potentially, the haint part of her will consume the other… but Bernice won’t go down without a fight. I love that about her.
The Bernice–Emmy relationship continues to be one of the most fascinating elements to me. For a long time “Harrow County” was building to a conflict between these two, and in the previous arc that finally came to the fore, but there was a problem with it that left it feeling unsatisfying. As vicious as the conflict between them was, it was all based on misunderstandings and a lack of communication. Ultimately, their conflict could be resolved simply by being given the right information.
“Dark Times A’Coming” drives them apart in a manner that cannot be so easily mended, and it comes at a time when both girls sorely need the other. Their worst trials lie ahead, and this time they face them alone.
Final verdict: 9.5 – “Harrow County” has always been excellent, and yet it has never been better than it is now. Cullen Bunn and Tyler Crook are not afraid to push their characters to the very brink and beyond. This is how you do good horror.
