LAKE OF FIRE review
(Review by Melody Werner)
Lake of Fire is a 2016 fantasy/sci-fi/horror 5 issue series published by the fine folks at Image. Written and colored by Invincible colorist Nathan Fairbairn and illustrated by Barbarian Lord cartoonist Matt Smith, it follows a group of crusaders who must face an encroaching and powerful alien threat. So it's sort of like a more serious The Spider King or a better Kill the Minotaur (which was just okay imo). I've heard it pitched as Aliens but during the Crusades and that's right on the money. Lake of Fire is a phenomenal self-contained book which still allows for a fun amount of reader interpretation we don't often see in comics.
The artwork is beautiful and expressive, moving from sweeping shots of impressively rendered locales to touching character moments to thrilling action sequences with nary a missed beat. Speaking of action scenes, goddamn does Smith know how to crank them up to eleven here with dynamic perspectives and glorious viscera. The brilliant color-work you'd expect from Fairbairn helps to elevate the visuals--not only providing pretty pictures but also creating a starkly oppressive mood fitting the title. These are the kinda pages where I have no idea which ones I want to show off as a taste of what to expect because every single one is just so great. The lettering (also by Fairbairn, who really needs to stop being such a god of everything because holy shit) is another element he has down pat.
I have a mixed relationship with the horror genre. In theory, I love it, but often times--at least with cinematic and video game attempts--atmosphere and psychological scares are largely shirked for punchy, shrill cues in the soundtrack that arr designed to make you jump even when nothing scary has happened. Like, no shit I'm going to jump when you've damn near given me a heart attack, but that's not terrifying it's just loud. Which is why I like horror comics, such as the sends-legit-shivers-up-my-spine The Immortal Hulk and, of course, Lake of Fire. But what makes Lake of Fire a genuinely unnerving read?
For starters, there's the constantly looming sense of dread which is executed in pitch perfect fashion. This is a comic with a constant, palpable sense of tension. You are able to feel a bit of what the characters are since the beasties they face NEVER let up. Then there is the subversion; with your typical horror story and the broader breadth of what I like to call "everyone dies stories," it is piss easy to guess which characters are going to live and die. You always have your plot-armored protagonists, idiots who get themselves or everyone else killed/endangered, and the fodder that purely exists as grist for the mill to fill in the bits where nothing of note happens with the story. That's how a lesser comic (and yes, I'm talking about Kill the Minotaur) does it and this is a surefire way of killing any and all threats of fear. Because if horror is about what is unknown, and we know everything that's going to shake out... it's never going to be anywhere close to spooky. With Lake of Fire, however, it either turns these tropes on their head or just executes them in a way that makes sense and suits the story. For instance: The idiots who endanger others are in actuality volatile zealots. They actually have a reason to be endangering others, because they're a bunch of fundamentalists, and it works because this idea is followed to its logical conclusion with conviction. Without giving too much away, Lake of Fire is a comic without mercy and if you try and guess who's going to make it out alive, I guarantee you you're going to be wrong. And that's what's so exciting!
Narratively, LoF provides one of the best incarnations of the "everyone dies" story, period. It almost reads as a response to a lot of the clichés you see in those so often. But it isn't just subversion that makes it so good, there's also something else that's really cool about it. It tells a compact, self-contained, complete, and satisfying tale with none of the excess fluff that can be associated with sequential storytelling. And when it ends, it's such a whirlwind of emotions, that if it had just been that I would've been perfectly satisfied. But then it goes one step further and what you end up getting still leaves open enough room so that you can actually think for yourself on how things might continue. I like a good comic that tells me everything in a compelling way, but facilitating interpretation in this way has its own special merits.
I highly recommend it to anyone else who might've missed it; I know I'm going to be going out of my way to pick up a physical TPB since this is a book that deserves a spot in my collection. This comic ROCKS. Go read it if you haven't already and it seems interesting to you. Lake of Fire gets a 9.5/10.
Must-read
Summary:
A stark, beautiful read with impeccable artwork and cunningly subversive writing. No strings attached.
Lake of Fire is a 2016 fantasy/sci-fi/horror 5 issue series published by the fine folks at Image. Written and colored by Invincible colorist Nathan Fairbairn and illustrated by Barbarian Lord cartoonist Matt Smith, it follows a group of crusaders who must face an encroaching and powerful alien threat. So it's sort of like a more serious The Spider King or a better Kill the Minotaur (which was just okay imo). I've heard it pitched as Aliens but during the Crusades and that's right on the money. Lake of Fire is a phenomenal self-contained book which still allows for a fun amount of reader interpretation we don't often see in comics.
The artwork is beautiful and expressive, moving from sweeping shots of impressively rendered locales to touching character moments to thrilling action sequences with nary a missed beat. Speaking of action scenes, goddamn does Smith know how to crank them up to eleven here with dynamic perspectives and glorious viscera. The brilliant color-work you'd expect from Fairbairn helps to elevate the visuals--not only providing pretty pictures but also creating a starkly oppressive mood fitting the title. These are the kinda pages where I have no idea which ones I want to show off as a taste of what to expect because every single one is just so great. The lettering (also by Fairbairn, who really needs to stop being such a god of everything because holy shit) is another element he has down pat.
I have a mixed relationship with the horror genre. In theory, I love it, but often times--at least with cinematic and video game attempts--atmosphere and psychological scares are largely shirked for punchy, shrill cues in the soundtrack that arr designed to make you jump even when nothing scary has happened. Like, no shit I'm going to jump when you've damn near given me a heart attack, but that's not terrifying it's just loud. Which is why I like horror comics, such as the sends-legit-shivers-up-my-spine The Immortal Hulk and, of course, Lake of Fire. But what makes Lake of Fire a genuinely unnerving read?
For starters, there's the constantly looming sense of dread which is executed in pitch perfect fashion. This is a comic with a constant, palpable sense of tension. You are able to feel a bit of what the characters are since the beasties they face NEVER let up. Then there is the subversion; with your typical horror story and the broader breadth of what I like to call "everyone dies stories," it is piss easy to guess which characters are going to live and die. You always have your plot-armored protagonists, idiots who get themselves or everyone else killed/endangered, and the fodder that purely exists as grist for the mill to fill in the bits where nothing of note happens with the story. That's how a lesser comic (and yes, I'm talking about Kill the Minotaur) does it and this is a surefire way of killing any and all threats of fear. Because if horror is about what is unknown, and we know everything that's going to shake out... it's never going to be anywhere close to spooky. With Lake of Fire, however, it either turns these tropes on their head or just executes them in a way that makes sense and suits the story. For instance: The idiots who endanger others are in actuality volatile zealots. They actually have a reason to be endangering others, because they're a bunch of fundamentalists, and it works because this idea is followed to its logical conclusion with conviction. Without giving too much away, Lake of Fire is a comic without mercy and if you try and guess who's going to make it out alive, I guarantee you you're going to be wrong. And that's what's so exciting!
Narratively, LoF provides one of the best incarnations of the "everyone dies" story, period. It almost reads as a response to a lot of the clichés you see in those so often. But it isn't just subversion that makes it so good, there's also something else that's really cool about it. It tells a compact, self-contained, complete, and satisfying tale with none of the excess fluff that can be associated with sequential storytelling. And when it ends, it's such a whirlwind of emotions, that if it had just been that I would've been perfectly satisfied. But then it goes one step further and what you end up getting still leaves open enough room so that you can actually think for yourself on how things might continue. I like a good comic that tells me everything in a compelling way, but facilitating interpretation in this way has its own special merits.
I highly recommend it to anyone else who might've missed it; I know I'm going to be going out of my way to pick up a physical TPB since this is a book that deserves a spot in my collection. This comic ROCKS. Go read it if you haven't already and it seems interesting to you. Lake of Fire gets a 9.5/10.
Must-read
Summary:
A stark, beautiful read with impeccable artwork and cunningly subversive writing. No strings attached.
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