Something Epic#13 // Review
It’s not the friendliest-looking place by any stretch of the imagination. The place looks kind of like the classic image of a haunted house in fact. Epic is there with D--her imaginary duck. Epic and D need to get in. They need to find a way to get into the realm of horror and the only way that they’re going to be able to do that is through the front door of a haunted house in Something Epic#13. Writer/artist Szymon Kudranski takes his tale into classical realms of horror accompanied by lots of weird references, quite a bit of trivia and a great deal of wit.
It all starts innocently enough. In order to get into the haunted house they have to...answer a trivia question. (Really. It’s that simple.) But it’s actually kind of a trick question that you might not get even if you know the answer. And then once Epic and D get inside, the REAL challenge starts. (D knows the answer. That little waterfowl seems to have a lot of knowledge about horror...) See: in order to enter a realm of horror, Epic is going to have to...get scared. And she’s not exactly the type who will scare easily...
Epic and D our objective of fun in the issue. The dialogue between the two of them fuels distinctly witty. and while it might borrow rather a lot from some of Steve Gerber’s work on Howard the Duck, I bet doesn't make it any less appealing. The ducks, many references to horror firmly ground the background of the issue in a space in a place that feel very familiar. And it's pleasantly familiar. It doesn't feel like it's echoing or aching too much that's come before it. It all feels so very charming.
The visual appeal of the issue gets a lot of mileage on classic horror tropes...and the distinctive appeal of an attractive young, woman in a leather jacker accompanied by a duck in a trench coat. Aside from that, there was some really cool framing of some of the ropes that hit the page. There's also a really short sense of the casual about the whole thing. All too often in horror, comments, walk around stiffly in exaggerated shock, and that sort of thing. There's a carefully complaining slouch about this particular trip and be around before that feels almost heroic.
Action continues to move forward. The horror end of this particular series feels remarkably well articulated in the 13th issue. Epic seems oddly vulnerable for someone who doesn't necessarily have a whole lot to be afraid of. Or doesn't think that she has a whole lot to be afraid of. She's not terribly into horror. She's not terribly afraid of anything. There's a casual kind of heroism about that. That really seems to be moving the series forward. Kudranski’s work feels as appealing in the conceptual as it does in the visual. That doesn’t happen nearly as often as it should.
