The Thing on the Doorstep #2 // Review
Edward is heading up the stairs.There is a rather large group of people surrounding a specific window upstairs. Edward doesn’t understand it at first. It’s just a storm. Storms happen all the time, what’s the fascination with it? Aren’t there more important things to be paying attention to? Edward is about to understand the significance of the storm in The Thing on the Doorstep #2. Writer Simon Birks and artist Willi Roberts continue their adaptation of the short story by H.P. Lovecraft. It’s a moody thriller with a bit more of the darkness edging around the corner of the panel as the adaptation continues.
It’s not the nature of the storm that’s fascinating everyone...it’s the origin of the storm. There’s a woman there at the window who is conjuring the storm out of sheer force of will. Her name is Asenath Waite. There’s a haunted look about her, but she’s got a very haunting presence. He approaches her and asks her how she did it. He doesn’t necessarily believe that she did what everyone seems to think that she did. He’s about to find out, though. All it takes is an open mind and the willingness to stare directly into her eyes.
Birks follows the form and fashion of Lovecraft’s writing with a great sense of poise. The relationship between John and Asenath meets the page i clever shadows that never give away too much about what’s going on. It’s all seen from a distance that manages to hold-on to just enough intimacy to keep the reader interested in what it is that’s going on between the two of them. It’s a fascinating sort of a journey that catches some of the more subtly disturbing ends of Lovecraft’s writing and follows them at a safe enough distance to maintain the mystery.
There’s a clever stylishness to Roberts’ art that feels more or less perfectly fused with the period of the story. The overall darkness of the atmosphere is maintained once more from cover to cover without overpowering the page. Asenath manages to become a very powerful figure on the page in spite of the fact that she doesn’t actually put-in much of a physical appearance on the page. John’s gradual deterioration seems powerful enough even though it’s only seen in subtle shades in his mood and movements across the page. There’s a tremendous amount of patience in the story’s visual manifestation on the page as the story continues to settle-in.
It’s only a matter of time before the horror becomes much more apparent on the page. As it is, the clever poise of the story continues to assert itself in the center of the panel as the horror continues to collect around the edges of the action. The framing of the story DOES feel quite straightforward. Perhaps there might have been a different approach to rendering it that might have felt a bit more dynamic in a contemporary comic book format, but it wouldn’t have been as true as it is to the style of Lovecraft.
