This month, Harrow County breaks away from the Bernice/Scary Snakes story to check in on Emmy. As you might imagine, she’s dealing with another malevolent spirit. Is it good?
Harrow County #12 (Dark Horse Comics)
Observations
- Poor Emmy. It’s gotta be hard when the people who were created by a witch can’t even be real with you.
- Oh look, a little girl with a doll she seems overly attached to. I wonder how that’ll turn out…
- Dinner with someone else’s family is awkward enough without a dead kid showing up.
- Guess the dead kid isn’t a fan of green beans, either.
- This family really needs to find a new real estate agent.
- Remember that doll I mentioned earlier?
To be fair, however, Emmy is carrying around a dead boy’s skin.
Is It Good?
After eleven fantastic issues, Harrow County has officially hit its first bump in the road.
On the art side of things, the fill in work by Hannah Christenson looks very nice on its own. But aside from a few exceptional panels near the end, it doesn’t match the feel of the book at all. In place of Crook’s dark textures and pristine lines, everything is bright and significantly looser. The style would work great on other titles–horror included–but not this one.
Story-wise, this might be the most predictable (and disappointing) script that Cullen Bunn has turned in for the series. While there is one cool reveal near the end, the narrative’s other two twists (especially the one at the end) are painfully telegraphed.
The dialogue between Emmy and the family she’s helping is fine, but their easy back and forth is a let down compared to the issue’s opening, which gave us an intriguing look at Emmy’s relationships with people who knew her before things got all wonky and supernatural.
Harrow County is still a superb title that every horror fan should be reading–just maybe skip this issue. Let’s hope that next month sees the book return to form…or the Bernice storyline, at least.
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