For most of his career, I’ve thought of Kyle Starks as a funny man. That’s not to see he doesn’t have nuance, his comics touch on old action movies, history, and sports. He’s got hobbies, and they show up in his books. “I Hate This Place” is more than that though, it’s a complete genre makeover. Instead of using heightened characters for laughs, the cast of “I Hate This Place” has the campy horror vibe of a classic slasher movie.
Written by Kyle StarksCover by Artyom Topilin
Illustrated by Artyom Topilin
Colored by Lee Loughridge
Lettered by Pat Brosseau
At their wits’ end, Gabby and Trudy have called on the help of famous ghost hunter Dante Howitzer. But can he actually help with the mysterious and terrifying phenomena occupying this land? Or will he find out exactly why the woods are off limits?
One of the first things you might notice about “I Hate This Place” is that Starks isn’t drawing it. That’s interesting to see; Starks wrote and drew his signature comic, “Sexcastle.” “I Hate This Place” is illustrated by co-creator Artyom Topilin and colored by Lee Loughridge. It’s interesting to see the throughline. Character designs from “Sexcastle” (drawn by Kyle Starks) and “Assassin Nation” (drawn by Erica Henderson) show up again in this comic. It’s one of the things that helps sell the dramatic tone.
So “I Hate This Place” is about a couple, Gabby and Trudy, who move into a ranch after the death of a family member. The problem is, the ranch is a ‘paranormal nexus’ (read: Hellmouth) and all sorts of spooky stuff happens. The problem is compounded by a curse- terrible things happen on the ranch but anyone who tries to leave it is inviting something even worse. So in this issue, Gabby and Trudy hire an exorcist.
This is where the character design really shines. The exorcist pulls up in an extermination van that says “Haint Happening” on the side, like the van from the beginning of Bob’s Burgers. The exorcist himself is a huge bearded man named Dante Howitzer. Mister Howitzer is a third generation ghost hunter, an Afghanistan veteran, a TV personality, and an accredited Catholic exorcist. And again, his name is Dante Howitzer.
That name (which may end up being the one he chose for himself) tells a story with the subtlety of a sawed-off to the face. Dante, because he fights ghosts and devils. Howitzer, because he has the personality of a really big gun. His name tells a whole wild story. It doesn’t seem realistic. It’s not supposed to. It heightens this guy enough that I recognize him as a type of guy I know where I live. The kind of person who is strongly Christian, but is also really into ghosts and guns. Howitzer is all these things, which is to say that he’s also full of shit, but with a strange earnestness to him.
The main couple is just as well realized. Gabby reminds me of girls I grew up with in the suburbs, she’s smart and driven but understandably afraid when presented with supernatural peril. Trudy on the other hand reminds me of women where I live now in the rural Midwest. She’s gay, she’s independent, and she also really likes guns. The gun issue is a really fascinating wedge between Gabby and Trudy and one that plays out like a real couple with a fundamental clash of values.
None of this excellent characterization would be possible without the art team. Topilin’s style is just as unrealistic as Starks’ writing. Everyone is a little bit cooler and goofier than they would be in the real world. Gabby looks like Andy Warhol drawing Merilyn Monroe. Trudy looks like a character from “Love and Rockets.” It’s got this great pop-art Americana vibe that really sells the horror of the paranormal nexus as something that infects the very land. The characters aren’t literally people, they represent archetypes of people we might encounter.
At the end of the issue, we are given a great tease as to what comes next. The hauntings seem random and chaotic, but there is clearly an internal mythology that Starks and Topilin are in no rush to explore. In writing this review, I reminded myself how fun I find these characters, and how interested I am in the specifics of the world. I checked out “I Hate This Place” based on my appreciation for the creator’s previous work. With issue #3 “I Hate This Place” just became a must-read-monthly book.
Final Verdict: 9.0 – If you were waiting for your new favorite Image Comics series, this is it.
