Tyler Crook’s “The Lonesome Hunters” returns for a new arc. It’s an issue that shows Crook growing as a writer and proves he’s got good instincts for it too. There are light spoilers in this review and a section marked for heavy spoilers.
By Tyler CrookFrom Russ Manning Award-winning and Eisner-nominated Harrow County cocreator Tyler Crook comes this supernatural fantasy about loss, power, and destiny.
Monster hunters Howard and Lupe are on their way to get rid of the powerful sword, but car trouble leaves them stranded in a small town that is being terrorized by a magical wolf and a mysterious child in a wolf mask. While waiting for car repairs, Lupe befriends the child and she and Howard are drawn into a war between the townspeople and the deadly beasts.
• Coming-of-age fantasy adventure!
“What do you think happens to you when you die?”
This is the question posed by Lupe at the beginning of this new arc of “The Lonesome Hunters” and it hangs over all that follows. There is a tension between who Lupe is in this story and who she becomes by its end. Death is something Lupe has already seen too much of, having lost both her parents and, during the course of the first arc of the series, her uncle as well. And yet she hasn’t let this stunt her empathy, as we see early in this issue with her making peace with a former enemy.
There’s emphasis put on this choice, and we can see that there’s some doubt in Howard.. And yet it isn’t Lupe’s magpie friend that I think we should be worried about, but rather Howard’s own friend, Tina. As we saw at the end of the first arc, Tina is working with Howard’s father’s church, helping them find him so that they may recover what they call “the Sword of God.”
In many ways, this issue is the beginning of a new arc, but also the epilogue for the previous arc. When the first arc ended, Crook spent a significant chunk of the story dealing with Lupe’s and Howard’s relationship. He could’ve focused on the action more or on the cliffhanger aspects, but instead the big scene of the issue was Lupe struggling with the emotional fallout from everything that happened to her, and Howard making the choice to get on her side. Yes, there were a few cliffhanger bits in that final issue, but most of the cliffhanger stuff was held onto for ‘The Wolf Child.’ Because of this, even before this new arc begins, there are several plotlines to juggle. In execution, Crook uses this to create momentum right away. And I’m not just talking about the big stuff, like the magpie queen, the sword, and Thaddeus Abraham’s church. This even comes down to conversations. Howard and Lupe continue discussing Mecha-Sabre Gemini, building on their previous conversation in “The Lonesome Hunters” #3, and just as before, using it to explore aspects of Howard’s and Lupe’s pasts. Because it’s a picking up from a previous conversation, there’s no extra set-up, Crook can hone right in on what he wants to talk about quickly and naturally.
But this only works if the reader has read the first arc of “The Lonesome Hunters.” While ‘The Wolf Child’ is technically its own miniseries, in truth it really is the next arc in an ongoing story. Make no mistake, this issue is “The Lonesome Hunters” #5. And truthfully, I think it’s for the best. By operating under the assumption that the reader is familiar with the story already, it gives Crook space to do things that require a closer level of attention from the reader. This ongoing Mecha-Sabre Gemini discussion clearly matters to Crook just as much as all the world building he’s doing with the magic crows and Thaddeus’s church. It shows the characters at their most earnest and vulnerable, and it shows Crook’s strengths as a writer beautifully. His focus on character continues to impress and so early on in this new arc, I already have a scene that’s a favorite.
This issue is certainly more talky than the four prior, and a big part of that is simply because it’s doing double duty as both an epilogue and the first part of a new chapter—it’s been ten months since the last issue, so there’s plenty of reminders in there. You’re probably familiar with the “As You Know” trope. It’s a trope that I think far too many reviewers see and assume it is automatically a bad thing—it’s not, and in the hands of a writer that knows what they’re doing, it can be a useful tool. And that’s certainly the case with Crook. He knows he has to catch readers up a bit, and he does so in a very direct manner by using the “As You Know” trope. What makes it so effective is that it’s used by members of Thaddeus Abraham’s church. It taps into the cadence of speech that’s meant to indoctrinate the listener. There’s little said that the listeners don’t already know, but it reinforces the inflated grandiosity and the purposeful myth-making of the speaker. By using the trope to convey valuable information for the reader, Tyler’s also carefully establishing the church’s hierarchy.
Continued belowBut there are still plenty of moments that read heavily through the art. There’s one early on, when Howard agrees he and Lupe need a phone and he gives her money to buy one. And through the art, we get this extra beat, where Lupe smiles to herself. We know her Uncle George didn’t trust her, and here we see Howard trust her without even thinking about it, but it means something to her to be trusted.
OK, that’s about as much as I can say with only light spoilers. I’m diving into heavy spoiler territory now. Jump ahead to the final paragraph if you just want my final thoughts.
There’s a scene early on where we return to the Magpie Queen, with this old bird clambering out of her discarded wooden helmet. The design of the Magpie Queen was something I felt was a particularly strong part of the visual storytelling from the first arc, though a reader could’ve missed the significance of it given the way the Magpie Queen was dealt with in that arc. A reader could potentially come away with the idea that the human-sized figure we saw in the first arc was the Magpie Queen herself. The scene in this issue really pays off the storytelling of that design, making it clear exactly what she is and that the human figure was just an advanced version of all the other magpie-possessed humans we’d seen.
And that wooden helmet did exactly what it was designed to do—it protected the Queen. Plus I just really liked how salty she is. Crook gets a lot of character out of the old bird, especially with her surly pacing, head lowered. It’s not exactly human body language, but it’s close enough that the attitude reads.
Finally, I wanted to mention the titular Wolf Child, who only appears in a pair of scenes in this issue. The first appearance is one that I think the reader could chalk up to as just a teaser, but I think it’s more than that. It comes right after Lupe has let her magpie friend go, and I believe this incident was witnessed by the Wolf Child. I think it’s why the Wolf Child approaches Lupe later in the issue, because Lupe demonstrated her compassion for something other than a human. We’ll see in future issues if that is indeed the case, but if it is, it’s just another example of Crook using a scene for multiple purposes.
OK, that’s enough big spoilers.
“The Lonesome Hunters: The Wolf Child” #1 is interesting to compare against “The Lonesome Hunters” #1 in terms of writing and pacing. The latter is decompressed, slowly getting us into the world, whereas the former hits the ground running. Crook makes the most of every page. There are very dense sections and yet he still carves out space for pauses, for story to be told through imagery. And this is a book full of gorgeous imagery. ‘The Wolf Child’ #1 sees him return to the woods, somewhere he spent a great deal of time in his “Harrow County” pages, and after the urban spaces of the first arc of “The Lonesome Hunters,” the woods scenes absolutely sing. Plus it immediately gives ‘The Wolf Child’ a distinct identity. This is a very strong start for a new arc of “The Lonesome Hunters.”
Final Verdict: 9.5 – “The Lonesome Hunters: The Wolf Child” #1 definitely feels like more of an ongoing series than a miniseries, but unless you’re a new reader picking this up because you saw a “#1” on the cover, this is to the story’s advantage. Crook deftly juggles multiple plot threads while still carving out space for the kind of character moments that endeared readers to “The Lonesome Hunters” in the first place.
