REVIEW: Sink #4

“Young Team”“ is the latest installment of John Lees and Alex Cormack“s Sink anthology ”“ set in the fictional Sinkhill ”˜hood of Glasgow, Scotland. Like too many of our own personal horror stories, “Young Team”“ opens in a classroom. Taking some of its cues from Stephen King classics (“The Body”“ and It), Lees“ narrative depicts annoyingly creepy characters whose whimsical approach to their world can either be childhood naivetÃ© or the early onset of a serial murderer“s mentality.

Horror is not the easiest genre to execute in the comic book form, but Lees and Cormack have created a world where the form can flourish with the staples of the horror genre intact. Sinkhill is a creeky post-industrial town that at times and in certain places looks completely abandoned. All of Cormack“s domestic interiors reveal for readers the spooky range of paneling in comics and why the manipulation of panel size, horizon and coloring all matter so much for the horror comics genre. Even the language is creepy. I am not fluent in Scottish vernacular so I really can“t discern the authenticity of the “Young Team“s”“ banter, but readers unfamiliar with it can enjoy it just the same. It localizes the overall story and underwrites the creepiness of a group of school kids who go on an adventure to kill some killer clowns.

The most striking feature of Sink #4 is the coloring by Alex Cormack and Lisa Moore. The shifting palettes from bright days to dark nightmarish nights are jarring and at times disturbing for the reader. And once the blood starts to flow it flows beautifully and unceasingly. Folks familiar with the world of Sinkhill will be happy to encounter Mr. Dig again. Mr. Dig is maybe the most enigmatic vigilante in comics since Batman, and his schooling of the “Young Team”“ forms the moral kernel of this scary tale.

In the “real”“ world, school kids from all over ”“ especially here in the United States — have been googling “clowns”“ and “clown sightings”“ for a good little while now. Try it for yourself and see. Sink #4 doesn“t really end up being about kid-kidnapping clowns, but the specter of clowns is used so well in this issue that you still might have It-like nightmares after reading it. In the world of Sink, clowns may not just be weirdos who dress like clowns and snatch kids. In Sinkhill, clowns might be drug dealers, child molesters, or next-door neighbors. This feeling of vulnerability is what the “Young Team”“ – Hardeep, Craig, Sarah and Jake ”“ decide to confront head on in Sink #4. 4/5

[yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]

(W) John Lees (CA) Joe Mulvey (A/CA) Alex Cormack