Road of Bones, a trade paperback collecting issues 1-4 of Road of Bones from IDW, is an astonishing slog into Horror.
As three escapees slip out of a Russian prison camp, things go from grim to grimmer. There ain’t no relief in sight, tempers are flaring, hands are freezing. It’s northern Russia, a motherless experience in midwinter. Bleak, mountainous, monotonous, mesmerizing.
Rich Douek writes this ghastly, gripping gulag of human drama, and he nails the tone of it right away. There is nothing like accompanying three desperate men across frozen mountain terrain. Desperation to the max, food to the minimum, mingled with blood and distrust.
Art and colour are by Alex Cormack. Cormack somehow balances the visual tone to encompass being lost and infamous in Russia, with moments of extreme violence and spatterings of human suffering. Not for the squeamish, this book. Cormack’s characters breathe hatred and scheming. They are ravaged but elegantly rendered, there is not a line squandered in the rendering of the men, nor the rending of their souls. It’s visually intricate, this journey into an imbalanced collective of minds.
This one is a surprise to me, it’s strong, gripping and relentless. Check it out.
IDW, Road Of Bones, $17.99 for 116 pages of content. Mature for horror
Newsdesk