Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees: The Rite of Spring #6 // Review
She smells smoke as she wakes-up in the back room. Samantha is pleased to see her awake. She mentions something about the smoke. Samantha confirms that yes: the shop IS on fire. So is the rest of the town, though. So the woman tied-p in the back room of Sam’s shop isn’t exactly alone. The fire cuts through everything in Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees: The Rite of Spring #6. Writer/artist Patrick Horvath closes-out the current Samantha Strong series with a particularly powerful conclusion that could mean a pretty dramatic turn for any further potential drama with Sam.
Sam flips a switch and a fire is started. Fire Engine #1 is sent out to deal with the situation only to get another call. There’s ANOTHER fire that’s been started...this one’s inside the fire station. Then things get really chaotic. Samantha probably didn’t want to have to do what she’s doing now, but it’s okay. She’s got everything under control. It’s just going to be a matter of making certain that a few people disappear. How difficult could that be? She’s been really good at getting rid of people. What’s a little more death amidst the flames?
Horvath draws the current series to its inevitable end where quite a bit of intensity. Given the nature of the series, all of that intensity exist, mostly in the situations themselves and not any kind of emotional reaction on a part of the anti-hero Sam. And given the fact that that this is coming almost completely out of nowhere for many people in the city, there isn't really much time for them to react either. There's a quick rush of events and a lot of death. The one hand it's a bit of a shock. On the other hand, it's really hard to imagine the series ending in any other way given the nature of what happened.
Woodbrook is burning. It's a small town, so there isn't complete chaos. Horvath maintains a placid look at the town as individual people deal with the unfortunate news of what's going on. There's a dark restlessness that's drawn to the page. The drama continues to play across the faces of all of the anthropomorphized animals that live in the city. Horvath brings it off to the page with a very steady hand in bed, continues to echo the overall mood and energy of the series.
It might have been all too easy to really light-up the page with the last big moments of the current series. Horvath allows the generally calm and somber energy of the series to continue as the tragedy mounts. It's a clever approach that will continue to pay off as Sam approaches her next inevitable series. There has been some evolution of Sam's character over the course of the past 11 issues of the series. And now there's a sudden jolt in a completely different direction. It would be interesting to see what a third series might bring.
