A 5-part event, from Comix Tribe, AND THEN EMILY WAS GONE #1 of 5 (MAY141251) is
created by award-winning creators John Lees (The Standard) and Iain Laurie (Horror Mountain)
and features variant covers by comic superstars Riley Rossmo, Nick Pitarra, Garry Brown,
and more! The first issue is on stands now! Get yours today.
REVIEW
And then Emily was gone is a very odd tale, very very odd indeed. This book opens with a familiar
trope that has been played out in many other stories before. A downtrodden detective who is on the
down and is merely clinging onto life, wasting the rest of his days, his colleagues describe him as
mad because he believes he can “see monsters” and have written him off as having a serious
nervous breakdown. Until Fiona walks in and tells him a tale of Emily’s disappearance, only going
with her because since he has met her he stops seeing the monsters, they travel to desolate island
off the coast of Scotland to investigate Emily’s strange disappearance.
Even just this basic plot summary to give readers a taste of this book doesn’t really do the complex
plot justice, throughout issue 1 there are many twists and turns in this oppressive and creepy tale
setting up an intriguing story that leaves you feeling interested, yet truthfully scared at where this
take might go.
This in large part thanks to the art in this book. Whilst it isn’t to my taste, it is reminiscent of Shaky
Kane’s style on ‘Bulletproof Coffin’ yet the muted color palette gives an overall sense of oppression
and dread whilst reading this book. Characters are twisted and distorted, the clean shaven spandex
clad superheroes of old these are not, and some of the characters in this book look truly broken
twisted human beings. It fits the book perfectly and for this tale I could not imagine another art style
working for it. Even simple things such as the panels having wavy outlines or just being splashes of
color with no defined borders help evoke when a particular scene is meant to stick out. It all comes
together in a well told piece of sequential art.
And then Emily was gone in an interesting tale that will gain a cult following. If creepy, mystery
stories are your thing I highly recommend going out and picking the book up. Due to the distinctive
art style it may only find a niche following however, for those that do give it a try they will find a
story that grabs you and simply refuses to let go.
3/5
By Matt Deery
Follow Matt on Twiter: @brujah69ad
Follow Comic Crusaders on Twitter: @ComicCrusaders
Author Profile
- Matt Deery is an avid comic reader from the UK, relatively new to the writing scene but, enjoying being part of the Comic Crusaders team and getting to talk about some the books that I adore. Will read almost anything Marvel, with Spider-Man and Iron Man being my all time favorite comic book characters and has recently found a love for Image and Valiant books and generally anything Sci FI or Espionage related. Check out my twitter @brujah69ad if you want to stop by and talk comics, video games or movies!
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