Connect with us

Comics

Review: ‘X Files Season 10’ #3

Published

on

“The X-Files Season 10” continues to emulate the best episodes of the show. Providing excellent pacing, deep mythology, and a sense of mystery this continues the perfect rebirth of the classic science fiction series.

WRITTEN BY: Joe Harris
ART BY: Michael Walsh
PUBLISHER: IDW
PRICE: $3.99
RELEASE: August 14, 2013

Joe Harris is on to something with the way he paces his scripts. He has effectively written them like episodes of television. There are teasers, mini act breaks, and multiple plots that dovetail perfectly in the end. This could all possibly be a coincidence, but I like to think it’s by design. The result is an expertly paced dose of “X-Files” every month that refuses to let up.

The issue begins with an innocent enough visit by two FBI agents. We see them questioning William’s parents, and the mystery of the child is thickened. We then get back to Scully’s dire circumstances, and learn that her captor may not be hostile after all.

Best of all we get the reintroduction of the Cigarette Smoking Man. Mulder and the CSM share the best scenes in the book. There is a certain exposition going here, and while it felt almost forced, you learn in the end it likely is misdirection. The CSM seems to have a good reason to do what he’s doing. But how is he alive? And why is he helping?

The Acolytes are developed. It’s particularly surprising and intriguing. I believe I have a inkling as to what is going on, but could be so very wrong. They seem nefarious and threatening in all the right ways.

Walsh’s art continues to deliver. The small moments here are what really make it. His attention to the details in CSM’s face, the little smirk as he lights another cigarette after he’s told to put his first out. Even the way Walsh draws Mulder captures his hunched posture. This is the work of someone completely of this world. It is inspired and a total treat.

“X-Files Season 10” shouldn’t be this good. The series has been off the air for years, and these characters have been dormant for far too long. Harris makes the case for keeping these characters around, and manages to push them in new and interesting ways.

What results is a fantastic rebirth of the beloved series on the page. The overarching serialized nature of the story helps to improve on the monster of the week formula that the show relied so heavily on. What results is a product better than the thing that inspired it. Bold claim, I know. Since the show has been off the air storytelling has evolved, for the better.

A couple plot points are resolved, for… well just because. The series has a tendency to allow mystery to do all the work. I would have liked a little more resolution with the CSM, but this is the “X-Files” after all, and resolution isn’t always the name of the game.

“Season 10” is the culmination and evolution of everything before it. As much as I love the show, these issues are better. Walsh’s art gives every page a flow that allows the action to move with incredible speed. Harris script is smart, and weaves around the characters like a snake. I’m so incredibly happy that this book exists, and even happier to report that it just keeps getting better.

4/5 Skulls

Reviewed by – Jimbus_Christ

Comics

[Review] Graphic Novel ‘Tender’ Is Brilliant Feminist Body Horror That Will Make You Squirm & Scream

Published

on

Tender Beth Hetland Graphic Novel

Beth Hetland’s debut graphic novel, ‘Tender,’ is a modern tale of love, validation, and self-destruction by way of brutal body horror with a feminist edge.

“I’ve wanted this more than anything.”

Men so often dominate the body horror subgenre, which makes it so rare and insightful whenever women tackle this space. This makes Beth Hetland’s Tender such a refreshing change of pace. It’s earnest, honest, and impossibly exposed. Tender takes the body horror subgenre and brilliantly and subversively mixes it together with a narrative that’s steeped in the societal expectations that women face on a daily basis, whether it comes to empowerment, family, or sexuality. It single-handedly beats other 2023 and ‘24 feminine horror texts like American Horror Story: Delicate, Sick, Lisa Frankenstein, and Immaculate at their own game.

Hetland’s Tender is American Psycho meets Rosemary’s Baby meets Swallow. It’s also absolutely not for the faint of heart.

Right from the jump, Tender grabs hold of its audience and doesn’t let go. Carolanne’s quest for romantic fulfillment, validation, and a grander purpose is easy to empathize with and an effective framework for this woeful saga. Carolanne’s wounds cut so deep simply because they’re so incredibly commonplace. Everybody wants to feel wanted.

Tender is full of beautiful, gross, expressive artwork that makes the reader squirm in their seat and itch. Hetland’s drawings are simultaneously minimalist and comprehensively layered. They’re  reminiscent of Charles Burns’ Black Hole, in the best way possible. There’s consistently inspired and striking use of spot coloring that elevates Hetland’s story whenever it’s incorporated, invading Tender’s muted world.

Hetland employs effective, economical storytelling that makes clever use of panels and scene construction so that Tender can breeze through exposition and get to the story’s gooey, aching heart. There’s an excellent page that depicts Carolanne’s menial domestic tasks where the repetitive panels grow increasingly smaller to illustrate the formulaic rut that her life has become. It’s magical. Tender is full of creative devices like this that further let the reader into Carolanne’s mind without ever getting clunky or explicit on the matter. The graphic novel is bookended with a simple moment that shifts from sweet to suffocating.

Tender gives the audience a proper sense of who Carolanne is right away. Hetland adeptly defines her protagonist so that readers are immediately on her side, praying that she gets her “happily ever after,” and makes it out of this sick story alive…And then they’re rapidly wishing for the opposite and utterly aghast over this chameleon. There’s also some creative experimentation with non-linear storytelling that gets to the root of Carolanne and continually recontextualizes who she is and what she wants out of life so that the audience is kept on guard.

Tender casually transforms from a picture-perfect rom-com, right down to the visual style, into a haunting horror story. There’s such a natural quality to how Tender presents the melancholy manner in which a relationship — and life — can decay. Once the horror elements hit, they hit hard, like a jackhammer, and don’t relent. It’s hard not to wince and grimace through Tender’s terrifying images. They’re reminiscent of the nightmarish dadaist visuals from The Ring’s cursed videotape, distilled to blunt comic panels that the reader is forced to confront and digest, rather than something that simply flickers through their mind and is gone a moment later. Tender makes its audience marinate in its mania and incubates its horror as if it’s a gestating fetus in their womb.

Tender tells a powerful, emotional, disturbing story, but its secret weapon may be its sublime pacing. Hetland paces Tender in such an exceptional manner, so that it takes its time, sneaks up on the reader, and gets under their skin until they’re dreading where the story will go next. Tender pushes the audience right up to the edge so that they’re practically begging that Carolanne won’t do the things that she does, yet the other shoe always drops in the most devastating manner. Audiences will read Tender with clenched fists that make it a struggle to turn each page, although they won’t be able to stop. Tender isn’t a short story, at more than 160 pages, but readers will want to take their time and relish each page so that this macabre story lasts for as long as possible before it cascades to its tragic conclusion. 

Tender is an accomplished and uncomfortable debut graphic novel from Hetland that reveals a strong, unflinching voice that’s the perfect fit for horror. Tender indulges in heightened flights of fancy and toes the line with the supernatural. However, Tender is so successful at what it does because it’s so grounded in reality and presents a horror story that’s all too common in society. It’s a heartbreaking meditation on loneliness and codependency that’s one of 2024’s must-read horror graphic novels.

‘Tender,’ by Beth Hetland and published by Fantagraphics, is now available.

4 out of 5 skulls

Tender graphic novel review

Continue Reading