Listen to Your Dark Side with Larime Taylor’s “A Voice in the Dark” [Advance Review]

Coming off the heels of a successful Kickstarter, Larime Taylor’s “A Voice in the Dark” is one of the coolest comics coming out of Image this year. Read on to find out why you should’ve donated to this book a long time ago (and a huge thank you if you did.)

Written and Illustrated by Larime Taylor

“BLOOD MAKES NOISE”
It’s been 72 days since Zoey killed someone. With her recent move to college, Zoey is eager to start a fresh chapter of her life — one where she can control her dark urges the way she has before. But when she becomes the host of a late-night campus radio show, Zoey must consider if she has given a voice to something far more troubled than her anonymous callers.

There is no way this book isn’t going to receive hella attention. “A Voice in the Dark” #1 comes from Larime Taylor, an artist with a genetic disorder that meant he had to draw “A Voice in the Dark” with his mouth. Now, a lot of attention will be paid to that point of the book, as it should since the fact that Taylor drew a whole comic with his mouth while I can’t draw a straight stick figure with my hands speaks volumes about the man’s talent and commitment to his art.  What I hope does not happen in other reviews of “A Voice in the Dark” is that Taylor’s condition becomes the main focus point, because as inspiring as his story is, one thing about “A Voice in the Dark” deserves more attention than its creator’s story:

It is one of the coolest books I read this year.

Set in an all-girl’s college in California, “A Voice in the Dark” is about Zoey Aarons, a freshman who has gone seventy-two days without killing someone. At her new school, she starts a show on the local college radio (conveniently called “KILL Radio”) where listeners call in to let out their innermost dark sides. Through this show, she also lets out her own, murderous dark side while trying to resist the urge to kill again, an urge which becomes more and more irresistible as obnoxious roommates and other serial killers begin to enter her life. Aside from being a premise with a huge amount of potential, this provides an organic position from which Taylor eloquently comments on aspects of modern society (bullying, sexuality, murder) without sounding too preachy. There is one scene that takes place in a college lecture where typical scarecrow figures speak up to voice wrong opinions just so they can be struck down, but these moments are handled in an intriguing, not condescending way. Usually with a sharp pencil in an unfortunate place.

Gruesome scenes such as those are handled by Taylor in a usually casual, almost foreign way. The black and white art itself is not exactly glamorous, but still provides a much more realistic depiction of human bodies and spaces more than other comic artists usually do, and the toned-down art style really fits in with the mellow, drowned out mood the story often takes. What’s really interesting is the depiction of Zoey’s mind, as seen in her daydreams and flashbacks. Even though it sounds like an easy gimmick to catch on to (Zoey often daydreams about murdering people and some daydreams coincide directly with moments in “the real world”), Taylor always spaces out the dream sequences and frames them in a way that is always fresh and surprising. Also, when Zoey goes into full flashback mode, not just killer daydream times, the layout becomes much more fluid and allows Taylor to experiment. One scene in particular, about Zoey’s sister Seven, has a particularly attention-gravving moment. (“The color of blood on flesh.”)

While I may have focused on some of the more serial killer aspects of the comic (as I am wont to do for everything) it should be noted that the main draw for this comic is the natural feel of practically every character. The relationship between Zoey, her sister, her parents, her uncle, her roommates, her victim, are all so natural that it’s easy to believe that they were taken verbatim from real-life conversations. Zoey’s sister Seven in particular has some of the best scenes in the book and one of the most most compelling stories. Zoey’s roommates are a little over-the-top but so is nearly every college student, and Taylor goes out of his way to make sure that no character is just a cliche.

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What’s even more refreshing than that is how nearly every character in this book is either a female, a minority, gay, or a combination of all three. Yeah, diversity doesn’t necessarily make the product, but seeing the conscious effort from Taylor to widen the diversity in his book, and in a way that’s not patronizing and just real, is to be commended.

In all honesty, even if I did not know the story behind Larime Taylor and how he came to create this book, it would still impress me. “A Voice in the Dark” is not “The Comic By The Guy Who Drew It With His Mouth” it’s “That Really Good Comic by Larime Taylor.” If you are interested in down-to-earth serial killers, dark college radio, or books with far more dedication and work put into them than your average comic, you owe it to yourself to read “A Voice in the Dark.”

Final Verdict: 9.1 – Buy! Buy! Buy!

“A Voice in the Dark” comes out on November 20th from Image Comics.