A new miniseries from Image, Tenement, breaks ground with its first issue. “Breaks ground” of course, being standard ‘developer talk’, meaning the start of construction. In this case, with the tenement being aged and not so new and gleaming, the groundbreaking is in its creators’ approach.
It’s an apartment building, housing seven people of particular interest. And right off the bat, writer Jeff Lemire shows us that this book, this miniseries, will be 1: creepy and full of mood, and 2: a new type of reading experience during all of this.
Take the first few pages, in a spoiler-free way: Artist Andrea Sorrentino (with Dave Stewart on colours) links the central characters, enveloping them, their highly realistically rendered faces, their low-key-tinted surroundings. It’s a mood enhancer, it’s a hope-destroyer. The wide open outdoors spaces, the cramped and closeted inside existence of the residents. The rampant pervasive crime, the crumminess all around.
Lemire and Sorrentino show us fragmented moments, split perspectives, isolated incidents, and accidents, slowly but surely building the support beams, the joists, the floorboards of horror. The characters are so alone, so aloof, so siloed in their own private torments.
Letterer Steve Wands contributes a nice choice of font ‘voices’, with the narrator talking in upper and lower case ’book font’ format, and the characters within the story speaking in all caps dialogue.
This book, with its high contrast, heavy black shadowed realism, its promise of more complications and confrontations, is fascinating. Check it out; the first issue is of extra length, getting us started with a 34-page Bone Orchard-connected story. Greg Lockard is the editor.
Image, Tenement #1, $3.99 for 34 pages of content, Mature readers
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