“Intersect” #1 epitomizes the creative opportunities horror has in the comic medium. Ray Fawkes firmly rejects the retrofitting of horror film tropes and conventions that is all too common in horror comics today to deliver something truly original, truly unreplicable, and truly terrifying. “Intersect” #1 is a beautiful as it is grotesque and will leave you with equal sentiments of “What the fuck did I just read?” and “I can’t wait to read more.” “Intersect” just might be the scariest book ever written.
WRITTEN BY: Ray Fawkes
ART BY: Ray Fawkes
PUBLISHER: Image
PRICE: $3.50
RELEASE: November 19, 2014
Reviewed By Eric Switzer
Knowing Ray Fawkes only from his work at DC over the past few years, I was shocked to find some of the most utterly dark material I’ve seen recently come from him. Furthermore the style of his art is completely unlike his DC work (or anyone’s work for that matter) and I’m so taken with this book that I will be going out immediately to examine more of his independent work.
“Intersect” is working on many levels. By way of plot it is sort of hard to explain, the vagueness of the story sort of adds to the uneasiness of it all. What we know is that in this world people shift or combine bodies: that some people have another person attached them and that they have to take turns being conscious and in control. We know that two (or four technically) of these people are on the run from what seems to be a very large dog. We know it snows frozen flakes of blood, and that someone or something is watching them and singing twisted nursery rhymes, and that if they aren’t careful they may start speaking backwards and riddles and become one with a stove.
Creepy is definitely the best word to describe the book, but Fawkes quite carefully and brilliantly keeps things pretty mysterious. We have just enough info to be engaged and completely freaked out. What’s more is this underlying notion that it all makes sense we just can’t figure it out. Perpetuated by the riddle-like speech of the detached voice, the scrambled letters seem like a code, and not to mention the 10 pages at the end of freaky nonsense; “Intersect” is as much style as it is substance, and that is something you’ve got to appreciate.
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Eric Switzer is an aspiring filmmaker and screenplay writer living in Los Angeles. His work tends to focus on the lighter side of entropy, dystopic futures, and man’s innate struggle with his own mortality. He can be found on twitter @epicswitzer or reached via email at ericswitzerfilm@gmail.com.