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Review: Rachel Rising #3

By | November 10th, 2011
Posted in Reviews | % Comments

Written and Illustrated by Terry Moore

Rachel discovers her affair with death has given her the ability to see the death of other people – before it happens! Using her newfound ability gives Rachel a powerful tool to track down her killer, but it also brings her heartbreak.

Despite the fact that cover to the right says “4,” I swear that is the cover to the third issue that I have sitting 6 inches to my right as I type this review.

Terry Moore is a legend of the industry, and a deserving one at that. He’s been churning out his own comics the way he wants to do them for a long time, and telling great stories at the same time. This is the first time I’ve looked at Rachel Rising since its launch. How is it shaping up?

Find out after the jump.

For Halloween, I wrote a feature highlighting the best horror comics in the industry. I have no idea why I didn’t include Terry Moore’s Rachel Rising on that list. In spite of the fact that it is just three issues in, this book is running on all cylinders with this third issue doing a stellar job of expanding on just the kinds of problems Rachel is having while revealing an opposite number that is likely linked to her current plight. Plus, it is creepy as all hell.

This issue finds Rachel off to find her friend Jet as she tries to start understanding what exactly is going wrong with her. Moore has always done a brilliant job of developing both his stories and characters very quickly, and this issue does that same thing very well. Moore knows that in truly scary stories, quite often the scariest thing you can show are things that are completely unexplained.

This issue has two particularly great instances of just that, with Rachel’s compelled confrontation with a bride-to-be (with her dark side taking the driver’s seat for a particularly scary reading of the bride’s future) and the entire section that features the new opposite number of Rachel and her interactions with the bride’s fiance.

Both bits are chilling, both are excellent story developments, and both get me all the more invested into the book.

The story is running on full tilt just three issues in, and Moore’s art is the standard level of greatness we can expect from him.

Produced in black-and-white, this issue highlights what Moore does well. Attractive, realistic women, unique character designs, great visual storytelling, and impressive character acting are all things that Moore has excelled at in his time as a comic book artist, and he shows all of that off in this issue. In particular, I enjoyed the back-to-back pages that found the bride’s fiance being turned against her by the duplicitous monster woman (without a name, this is what I will call her) and his initial interaction with his bride post that meeting. The way Moore acts out those scenes – the changing tone in the man’s face, the steely, almost casual look on the face of the duplicitous monster woman, the sudden twist in facial expression of the bride once she sees her fiance’s face – sells the sequence so well, you almost don’t even need words.

This is a pretty short review, but to be fair, it’s a pretty short book. It’s a very, very quality one as well, and one that shows off the talents of one of the most consistently great creators on the market. If you get a chance to pick it up, I highly recommend this unique and well-crafted book.

Final Verdict: 8.5 – Buy


David Harper

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