As the story arc wraps its cocoon around the women inside it, its contents begin to take on a scent. Sleeping Beauties #5, from IDW, is an acrid, sour read.
The story so far, is that women, presumably all over the globe, but specifically in one pocket of the US, have been afflicted by a virus that kills them when they sleep. The women exude a threadlike substance and die. “It’s a wrap”, as they say in Hollywood. This is alarming, obviously, but there is one woman in a town named Dooling who seems to be immune. Her name’s Eve, she’s from the woods, and now she’s in prison.
This story, originally a novel by Stephen King and Owen King, has been reshaped and rewrapped for the comic medium by Rio Youers.
The men around town are twisted and angry, embittered and implacable. Swearing, urinating, shooting meth, and drinking, they are layabouts with no one to lay around with. Corpses are getting burned, and there is a lot of macho posturing.
Writer Youers keeps the suspense up to snuff, and the atmosphere claustrophobic and intolerant. But perhaps the heat is too much, and the sausage is getting spoiled and tough: there are typos in the word balloons, dialogue words are getting stuck together without spacing, and it’s hard slogging to get through the hate. Letters by Valerie Lopez, editing by Elizabeth Brei, assistant editor Riley Farmer.
Artist Alison Sampson and colourist Triona Tree Farrell provide strong visuals, chilling the caged heat dialogue with awesome renderings of humanity at its most basic. The full-on blast of primary colours give us a bit of challenge to identify shapes but overall breathes life back into this almost comically miserable set of characters. It’s brutal for sure, but on the low end of originality.
Only for the strong of pulse and tolerant of reader.
IDW Sleeping Beauties #5, $3.99 for 22 pages of content. Assume Mature for adult situations
Newsdesk