The “Ballad”, as it were, of Scout Comics’ Black Caravan Broken Souls Ballad #3 is a horrific song.
This horror title involves teens from St. Abigail’s who have discovered that they have special powers. Their emerging powers are made evident in startlingly grotesque scenes of gory and monsterous transformation. Battles of good and bad, bathed in pathos, anger, and wild violence.
It ain’t for the weak of heart, of course. Or for those who dislike seeing someone who literally, like, wears their heart, for real, on their sleeve. So to speak.
Tuscan Italy writer Massimo Rosi is gifted in portraying the clannish teens, and the interlopers, the attackers. The emotional bonds, the teen angst turned up to 11. Sudden shifts from being in a ‘safe place’ to being trapped in an ‘insane place’. It’s powerful, this strolling, ambling pentameter that abruptly shifts pace to become an attack zone, a furious ring of fire, a cage match of wrestling demons.
Illustrator (line and colour) Ludovica Ceregatti gets it right almost 100% the time. The physical gestures, the sense of space, the lighting, the ballet of the bizarre. The incredible colour. Okay, sometimes the teens have strangely exaggerated mouth expressions, as if their mouths are misshapen, but this is a minor quibble, not affecting our enjoyment or shock at the otherwise smoothly conjured visuals.
It’s horrific, it’s consistently entertaining and troubling. If you like your horror fresh and powerful, give this title a try!
Scout Comic, Black Caravan, Broken Souls Ballad #3, $3.99 for 26 pages of content. Mature
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