Exquisite Corpses #8 // Review
The feed is almost back online. There are a lot of people who are really concerned about the state of the game. They might have a lot on the line, but they don’t have nearly as much to worry about as the people who are IN the game as things continue to unravel in Exquisite Corpses #8. The writing team of Pornsak Pichetshote and James Tynion IV move their narrative one step closer to the climax with some developments that continue to derail that contest. The story is brought to the page by artists Adam Gorham and Michael Walsh. Color comes to the page courtest of Jordie Bellaire.
There’s a guy walking around amidst the fire. He’s wielding an axe. He’s an actual axe-wielding homicidal maniac. So it’s a bit cliche, but it’s not like he’s trying to entertain anyone else. And with the feed down, there’s no one around to see him kill, so it’s fine. Elsewhere, the golden masked Lone Gunman from Massachusetts is dying. There’s an EMT there to see him die. He’s got nothing left to lose, so he explains the situation to her. She’s going to try to stope the whole contest by herself. It’s crazy. She IS ex-military, but she was a medic. Never saw actual combat before...
Tynion and Pichetshote have been relatively precise about how they’re allowing the game to unravel. The long scene between the Lone Gunman and the EMT establishes the likely course of events that are going to wrap-up the whole series. With any luck at all it might yet be the case that the serial isn’t going to end predictably, but at this stage anything could happen. The drama drawn to the page feels visceral enough to be compelling even if the story DOES have the kind of ending that seems apparent after that conversation with the EMT.
Gorham and Walsh keep it dark on many, many levels with the visuals of the eighth issue. The heavy ink continues to pain a bleak evening as the killing continues. There’s a sharp sense of horror about it all in hevy inks and deliciously garish splashes of color by Bellaire. The full impact of the horror might feel a bit lost in the gloopy inking of the series, but the style DOES lend itself to a kind of delightfully crude visual dynamic that does as much for drama as it does for gore and action.
The series seems to be limping its way across to its ending. Some of the best horror is a long, exhausting tale of survival where nothing can be taken. for granted and death lurks around every corner. The creative team of Exquisite Corpses have been maintaining the right rhythm on that dynamic streight through the series thus far. There are only a few issues left. Things could go in more than a few different directions, but it will remain to be seen quite precisely where it all lands in the final panel.
