As far back as I can remember, I’ve always been afraid of spiders. Okay, so that’s a hack line and an easy reference, but it’s true. Spiders terrify me to my core: I seize up and have a full blown panic attack at the sight of them. I’m definitely not the only one in the world, either, as spiders tend to be used in media to signify the strange, the off-kilter, or just to freak me out unexpectedly.
“Weavers” #1, from Simon Spurrier and Dylan Burnett, is a book that combines a noir-tinged gangster story with a dash of Eldritch horror and uses spiders as a metaphor for crime, for the ability to do great harm onto another. And it’s the start of something beautiful.
Written by Simon Spurrier
Illustrated by Dylan Burnett
What’s to Love: From The Godfather to The Sopranos, organized crime stories have always fascinated us. Weavers is a macabre story with a twist on the familiar drama of dons, capos, and made men, mixing in supernatural elements that only writer Simon Spurrier (The Spire, Cry Havoc) could think up. It’s perfect for fans of Day Men or Scalped!
What It Is: Sid, a young man with nothing going for himself, becomes an unlikely new addition to The Weavers, a brutal, East Coast crime family whose members are bound to loyalty thanks to the supernatural spider inside each one of them, granting them powerful—and often grotesque—abilities. Once he realizes what he’s capable of, Sid sets out to pursue his own secret agenda, counter to the group’s objectives. But he doesn’t have much time—the longer the spider is inside him, the more loyal he becomes to the Weavers…
Simon Spurrier has long been a massive talent in comics that I believe has been sorely overlooked. Sure, he’s a well known writer who’s had some pretty high profile books, but I feel like the true genius of his writing hasn’t been appreciated enough. “Weavers” #1 hides a great potential of what is to come behind a fairly simple setup that introduces the reader to this world and to the rules of that world. It is, in essence, the story of one guy who gets in with the mob and realizes much too late that he’s in far too deep for his own good. What makes “Weavers” unique though – aside from the excellent character writing and the macabre artwork by Dylan Burnett – is that touch of Eldritch horror that takes it to a whole new place away from any other gangster film you’ve ever seen.
Though this issue only hints at the places it will go over the course of its six issue run, what it has on display right from the off is the fantastic artwork by Burnett. Full of life and character and a sense of dark visual comedy that perfectly matches the dark humour of Spurrier’s writing, Burnett’s artwork leans as much on visual horror as it does the gangster films that inspire the story. The issue is full of seedy bars, dark alleys, and grimy bathrooms. Burnett’s heavy inks bring out the oppressive shadows of these locations. What makes the artwork so effective, though, is how unreserved it is. While there’s an definitely element of realism to Burnett’s work, he’s not afraid to exaggerate the characters, their expressions and movements, and use strange angles and layouts on the page to emphasize that underlying horror in the script.
The underlying horror is also brought to the forefront by colourist Triona Farrell. She uses red as prominent theme colour set against sickly greens to highlight the shadows of Burnett’s inks. This effect immediately sets readers uneasy as the combination of the harsh reds against eerieness heavily foreshadows the horrors to come before the early gruesome reveal of the true nature of the Weavers. It’s effective and as the issue settles down into its rhythm, Farrell eases up on the harshness of the contrast and only really brings it in for emphasis. Instead, the colours tone down to more blue-greys and and pastel-y oranges and pinks near the end of the issue which almost lulls the reader into a false sense of security until an expertly paced double page spreads alternates from a cold palette to a warm palette from panel to panel until the creeping intensity to the colours increases, signifying something dreadful is about to happen. The colours are pretty intense throughout, but they expertly serve to convey the horrors of the world of “Weavers”.
Continued belowOne thing that rarely gets brought in reviews of comics or given enough credit is lettering and I think it’s one of those cases where good lettering doesn’t really call attention to itself. Good letting in a comic is like a good score in a film where it exists to fill out what you’re seeing and provide an expanded context to the visuals. Here, the lettering by Jim Campbell does actually call attention to itself in a couple of ways, most notably in how Campbell denotes characters’ asides by downsizing the text and presenting it in a more muted grey as opposed to black. This helps flesh out the characters’ voices more than by just bolding certain words for emphasis and makes reading the dialogue feel a little more naturalistic than trying to work out how something should be read through context. It’s a nice touch and one I haven’t seen very often.
All in all, I can gladly say that “Weavers” #1 isn’t as much about spiders as it is a love letter to gangster films filtered through a touch of Eldritch noir, using the spiders as a metaphor for the capacity for violence that our characters have. While this first issue is very much just the first act of the story, introducing the characters and world and lore of the Weavers themselves, Spurrier, Burnett, Farrell and Campbell do such a great job of making “Weavers” feel like something fresh and new despite the fusion of two otherwise well treaded genres that it continues to be a captivating read. Now that may be because I will mark out to anything that feels remotely Lovecraftian, but that doesn’t take away from the craftmanship on display that promises that this will be a dark and wild six issue ride.
Final Verdict: 8.5 – Don’t worry, there’s less spiders than you might imagine and much more tentacle-y goodness.
