The horror of “Redfork” is both obvious and not, eldritch and all too human. It is a story of hope in a place that feels hopeless, but reminds us that the world is a cruel place made crueler by our indifference and greed. It’s a book by Brit writing about a swath of rural America powered by coal while that very coal kills them. Welcome to Redfork. You won’t survive the experience.
Cover by Nil Vendrell
& Giulia BruscoWritten by Alex Paknadel
Illustrated by Nil Vendrell
Colored by Giulia Brusco
Lettered by Ryan FerrierEx-con Noah returns to find his hometown of Redfork decayed by opioid abuse. But soon he discovers a more sinister and dangerous supernatural presence lurking in the coal mines below town… From critically acclaimed creators Alex Paknadel (Giga) and Nil Vendrell (Shirtless Bear-Fighter!).
“Redfork” is a story that thrives on two kinds of horror: the supernatural and the corporate. This may seem odd, as a lot of the parts that left me squeamish came from the frank portrayals of the opioid epidemic & the familial fights, but Paknadel is very quick to identify these problems as directly stemming from the nature of coal towns (read: factory towns.) From page one, the two are inextricably linked. It’s a six panel grid, with the left a mechanical process, with coal being found, crushed, and deposited with the words of the industry overlaid: “Beautiful. . .Clean. . .Coal.” On the right is a human process, of pills being found, crushed, and deposited, with just a “SNFF” to break the silence.
The left half in a sickly green; the color of go and permission. Of the start. On the right, red, the color of stop and arrest. Of the end. Placed next to each other, the mechanized, impersonal industry is positioned as the impetus for the actions of the depersonalized person in despair. It’s a quiet moment of terror that forms the heart of “Redfork’s” commentary, of which the supernatural aspect works to support.
There is something beneath Redfork that only wants to consume to satiate itself, all while promising salvation for the town it is killing, for the “family” that is keeping it fed and alive while they rot from the inside.
It’s in this rot that Vendrell and Brusco get to flex their muscles. The splash pages at the end of every chapter are great examples of this but in particular the one at the end of Chapter 5. I still get chills from that image. The way Brusco let shadows only light part of the face, forcing us to fill in the rest through the dim cave, the eyes and teeth glinting in hunger and echoing what we saw in the daylight. It’s a gruesome image and Vendrell sells the absolute hell out of it. I could not tear my eyes away from it, no matter how horrified and full of dread I was, and no matter how much I wanted to know how the story would conclude. I did, of course, but the eeriness of that image remains.
I had no idea Nil Vendrell could do horror. I mean, it’s a no-brainer when reflecting on his previous work, “Shirtless Bear Fighter” — a series Multiversity Comics heartily recommends — but somehow the earnestness of that series’ camp prevented me from transposing that jaw-dropping, body morphing, muscle rippling art to a different genre.
This mistake has since been rectified.
Vendrell’s landscapes are moody and ominous without losing their grounding in the West Virginia mountainside. There is a great and spooky beauty to those woods and the valley that Redfork resides within and these two capture it perfectly. I particularly like Brusco’s palette choices, foregoing naturalistic colors for dark scenes and opting for hazy greens and purples. It makes it feel more otherworldly, priming us for the supernatural, but without leaning fully into the stylization.
The non-horror moments are also sold with the same intensity, or, really, with a different kind of intensity. They’re more quiet and the most successful scenes are those where Vendrell’s art is more restrained. When things get too heated, the comic seems less sure of itself and some of the cracks show.
Continued belowThe weakest scene of the whole book — which, mind you, is still an excellent scene — is when Noah’s brother’s wife is lambasting him after Cody is injured in the mine explosion. It rings false and I found myself starting to have my suspension of disbelief shattered. It’s not the anger, misplaced or otherwise, that broke it but instead why she seemed angry. She blames Noah’s RETURN for Cody’s injury. The pieces are there to construct a reading that is more favorable but the dialog didn’t gel with what we’ve been led to believe about the characters’ resentments and hang-ups over Noah’s time in jail.
The other weakest scene is the end of Chapter 3, when the Miss Paisley, vomits suddenly after seeing a photo of Gallowglass (excellent name and design by the way) and connects it to her family’s darkest secret. Part of why it doesn’t work is we haven’t spent much time with the character. Noah and his family take up the vast majority of the page space, as is his prerogative as the main character, but it means that she suffers as a character, appearing more as an archetype and plot point than a person.
This is fine, were she to have remained distant, but we’re invited into her life so that the teasing of Gallowglass’s connection to her family, and her own fear of it, can be put on display for the audience. An effective cliffhanger but one that would have worked better if we’d gotten to know Miss Paisley a little more. “Redfork” also doesn’t quite know what to do with its female characters, sidelining them for the male characters more often than not, and I think the story would have greatly benefitted from a more active roll from them, particularly from Unity.
Don’t let this make you think Paknadel’s scripts or characters are flat or underdeveloped; they’re not. The pacing and slow-burn tension is outstanding. He understands when to accelerate, when to slow down, when to let the simplicity of a page sell the moment and when to get experimental. The story & themes and the way they are affected and brought into relief by the characters as well as the fact that each chapter works as a unit AND as a whole without the hiccups other TKO title (or any monthly comic) has is a testament to his talent.
The scripts are sharp, fully realized and keep your attention, drawing you in deep before you realize you’re trapped, in the best of ways, until the ride is over. Be it through dialog or Vendrell’s art, we know what the characters are all about very quickly upon introduction and they are complicated and developed with each passing scene. Moments are economical, like the scene at the start of Chapter 3 which explains how Noah got so jacked, but they can also linger. They just don’t always have the rifght moments to shine and it makes what could have been a perfect book excellent instead.
Oh, and I can’t close a review without praising Ferrier’s lettering. The usual font is pointed and slanted, like every word spoken has a hint of uncertainty and an edge, honed through years of toil and pain. Even soft moments are hardened by them, reflecting the difficult realities of a dying town. The irregularity is welcomed without being jarring and the right fit for this tale of “snow coal.”
“Redfork” is easily one of the best horror comics of 2020 and might very well become a classic of the genre. It’s a work I know I’ll find myself returning to when I’m in the mood for a good scare, for characters that will make me weep, and for the hills that are rendered so beautifully in the evening sun and so terrifyingly in the twilight dusk.
