If there are lessons to be gleaned from Afterschool #1, from the Skybound inprint of Image Comics, it’s that life can just toss you any old bone, and it’s up to you to deal.
The first issue’s “Spineless” tale indeed deals with Nora, who is having a lot of anxiety. Until her family interrupts her gaming habit to introduce a support dog to her. Welcome Janie, who transforms Nora’s life.
Writer Justin Benson and Aaron Morehead dish out the ‘feels’ right from the start, then shift gears to make us feel queasy, uneasy, and full of dread. What is up with this mysterious Janie dog? Who knows where the tale will lead us, wagging and trailing in entrails. It’s a twisted fluid shocker to be sure, dragging us on our short leash toward more and more horror. Bless my heart, but there are a lot of innard thoughts and fears that are just making us twitch!
Artist Greg Hinkle has the chops to delight and disgust us, sprinkling the horror like the dew of continual blessing. Hinkle expresses visual emotions brilliantly, and with Giovanni Niro on colours, splashes the sunlit scenes of happiness in just the right proportion to the darker hours. The panel layouts are wonderful, the visual elements well proportioned. We are entertained and never disoriented. Niro’s environments show a lot of intelligence and thought, with colour ranging from cool, fluorescent-lit classrooms to spooky moonlit bedrooms and everything in between. Letters by Pat Brosseau.
Between you and me, this is one spooky adventure, surely to unsettle the reader who is just settling into their easy chair.
The principal story runs 30 pages, with a four-page black and white backup preview of Clementine included as a bonus to the “Spineless” standalone main story.
Image Comics, Skybound imprint, Afterschool #1, $4.99 for 36 pages of content. Mature for Horror
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