Rachel Rising #23 – Review

By: Terry Moore (writer/artist/letters)

The Story: Rachel and Jet try to save Aunt Johnny while preparing for the showdown with Lillith.

Review (with SPOILERS): This was an interesting issue of Rachel Rising because we very quickly find ourselves heading toward a climax with a showdown between Lillith and Rachel.  It’s odd because the series was being very, very methodical during the “Act 2” phase of the story.  It just seemed like things were taking forever to come to a boil, then WHAM…..Rachel and Jet are plowing through the snow in a VW bus toward a showdown with Lillith.  In some ways, it made me wonder if Rachel Rising might only be a ~30 issue series because suddenly I feel like the end might be upon us before we know it.

In some ways, that wouldn’t be a bad thing.  I’ve enjoyed Rachel Rising, but I’m also eager to see the conclusion.  I’m also eager to see whatever story is percolating in the mind of Terry Moore after Rachel Rising gets finished.

On the other hand, there are some other elements of the story that are still much farther from resolution such as the struggle to reanimate Aunt Johnny and whatever creepy necrophilia Dr. Siemen is into.  How horrible for Johnny!  I mean, she is a lesbian in life and now her dead body is going to be violated by creepy Dr. Siemen.  Yuck, yuck, double yuck.

Rachel Rising #22 – Review

By: Terry Moore (writer/artist/letters)

The Story: Rachel becomes more aware of her past life.

Review (with SPOILERS): This was another slightly ho-hum issue of Rachel Rising.  I have a feeling this story will read dramatically better in trade because while this issue accomplished some important work in terms of progressing the overall plot, it isn’t that enticing as a single-issue read.

This middle portion of the Rachel Rising series has been all about the pieces clicking into place.  Issue-by-issue we are growing to understand a little more about who/what/when/where/why/how.  It’s an exciting development because once this housekeeping is complete, we can get on with the main climax of the story – and that is something that all Rachel Rising fans have been looking forward to for awhile.

Rachel Rising #21 – Review

By: Terry More (writer, artist, letters)

The Story: Rachel & Jet try to save her Aunt Johnny.

Review (with minor SPOILERS): This was one of those issues that made me feel a little silly for writing monthly reviews.  The apt comparison would be reviewing a 5 minute snippet of a movie – or – reviewing the action of a TV show between commercial breaks.  The point is that a story like Rachel Rising will eventually be reflected upon as an entirety.  Whether its final run is 30 issues or 100 issues, there will be a defined ending and we’ll consider it as a whole– we’ll even read it as a whole.  Most people that return to the series in the future to read it, won’t be bothered with these somewhat arbitrary breaks between issues.

That entire preamble is a long-winded way of saying that this issue is just doing work.  After all the big revelations and clarifications of the last two issues, RR kinda needed to return to just pushing the story along, and that’s what this issue does.

We needed to see what happens to Aunt Johnny now that her body is dead and her soul is trapped in her dog.  I guess the most interesting thing about this extended scene is that Rachel and Jet call in the creepy old town doctor for help.  Remember, this guy is keeping his wife’s mummified body in his kitchen!  And even this creepy old doctor gets weirded out by what is going on.  Kinda funny… How are they going to get the soul back out of the dog?  I bet they’re going to kill that poor dog…

Rachel Rising #20 – Review

By: Terry Moore (writer/art/letters)

The Story: As the action bounces back to the present, Rachel, Jet & Zoe start to learn some new things about themselves.

Review (with SPOILERS): To use an English football saying, Rachel Rising is “in a nice run of form.”

Before these last couple of issues, we’d had a 4-5 month span where the comic was still good, but seemed to be lingering in Act II for quite a long time.  Then Boom! We got last issue which taught us a lot of the backstory to the series.  Now #20 has captured that momentum and applied it to our present-day story.  I’m really tickled with the direction of the series right now.

So many things are clearer now that we understand a little more about the past.  For one thing, I’d always kinda wondered why Rachel was set apart from the other reincarnated witches.  Even accounting for the fact that Rachel didn’t have any memories of the past, she never really seemed to be part of the group.  Well…..now we know that this is because Rachel is the reincarnation of Bryn Erin.  From what we learned last issue, Bryn Erin wasn’t really part of Lilith’s group, but Lilith was being persistent in trying to recruit Bryn Erin.  She acted almost like it was important that Bryn Erin join them to fully realize her powers.  And then, before Bryn Erin could make any decisions about her future, the “Salem Witch Trial” happened and the ladies all died.  So, Bryn Erin wasn’t (yet) a part of Lilith’s group in the past, and it appears she isn’t part of that group now either.  There’s some interesting dynamic to be played out now that Rachel understands what is going on.  I almost wonder if last issue was a vision that Rachel had while passed out in Aunt Johnny’s home.  Did her (whole) life flash before her eyes or something?

Rachel Rising #19 – Review

By: Terry Moore (writer/artist)

The Story: In a flashback, we learn some more about the “witches.”

Review (with SPOILERS): This issue of Rachel Rising really connected with me and I hope it represents a turning point the series (which is enjoyable, but has been spinning its wheels for a few issues).  Maybe it’s GO time….

It is also an unusual issue of RR because it shows the first extended glimpse of the original “witches” who were originally killed by a Salem-esque lynch mob ~300 years ago.  Through the series, we’ve come to understand that modern day women are the reincarnated souls of these witches, but we’ve never really seen this colonial era.

For me, this glimpse into the past really centered the series.  These women aren’t really “witches”; they just had a sort of connection to life and the natural world.  Given that they were living in a fundamentalist Christian community, anything that wasn’t understood must be the work of Satan so these women were hunted down and killed.  I love it when writers give us comic material that can be connected to modern day problems because it shows how some themes are universal and there certainly is a continual practice in some religions to call anything unusual the work of Satan.  If Terry Moore showed us more of these townfolk discussing the “witches” I bet someone would have accused the “witches” of being lesbians too and suggested that they would try to co-opt the town youth with their “gay agenda.”

Rachel Rising #18 – Review

By: Terry Moore (writer/artist/letterer)

The Story: Bad things continue to swirl around the hamlet of Manson.

Review (with SPOILERS): This was a good issue, but it illustrates several frustrating things about the series.

Let’s start with the positives since this is an essentially good comic book.  The one thing you can never get away from is how nice Rachel Rising looks.  It kinda goes without saying that a guy who publishes an instructional books called “How to draw women” and is famous for the female-centric Strangers in Paradise would draw excellent female characters.  But, often when we’re praising how well an artist draws women (especially when the reviewer is a heterosexual man), we’re just talking about the fact that the women are attractive.  Terry Moore really takes it a step further.  The ladies in Rachel Rising look like real women.  They’re all attractive, but Moore is able to give them little bits of reality that is usually missing from comic book women.  I mean, in the opening scene, a few of the bad witches are doing something outside of town, and I thought to myself while reading, “Geez…..they look like they probably haven’t had a bath in a few days.  I’ll bet they kinda stink.”  For all the comics I’ve read in my life and for all the vigorous things you see female characters doing, I don’t think I’ve ever considered whether Ms. Marvel can get BO if she doesn’t take a shower regularly.  There is just something about the way Moore draws women that makes them come across as real human beings rather than some idealized creatures that you’d never actually see in real life.  We all know women who look like the characters in RR.

Rachel Rising #17 – Review

By: Terry Moore (writer/artist/letters)

The Story: The same as it’s been; reincarnated witches menace a small, modern-day town.

Review (with minor SPOILERS): Rachel Rising has been mired in “Act 2” for what seems like a long time.  It’s still a very high-quality series and I enjoy each issue, but “we” have understood the broad outlines of the threat facing the town for 5-6 issues now and not much new has really happened: Each issue we learn a little more about Zoe or a little more about Jet or something about Malus, but nothing really happens.  These reincarnated witches TALK a big game about vengeance, but we’ve yet to see much really happen beyond the occasional, isolated murder.

Rachel Rising #14 – Review

By: Terry Moore (story/art/letters)

The Story: Reincarnated witches plan evil things for a small town.

Review (with minor SPOILERS): Perhaps this issue requires a closer reading, but there is a feeling that not much happened.  Many of the events of this issue felt like the reinforcement of information we already knew and that made the issue less than fulfilling.  Quality….but not what I’d hoped for.  We already knew that this town had a “Salem Witch Trial” moment in the past and that somehow, the spirits of those murdered women are returning to life and want revenge against the town and the descendants of their tormentors.  And we also already knew that the titular Rachel is supposed to be one of these witches, but for some reason, her death/possession didn’t work and she still thinks of herself as “Rachel” and not some ancient witch.  This issue mostly strolls through that same garden of themes and it leaves the reader wishing that the series would “get on with it”.

Rachel Rising #13 – Review

By: Terry Moore (writer, artist, letters)

The Story: Rachel is back in action and the bad girls hatch a new plan.

Review (with SPOILERS): As Rachel Rising enters its second act – or at least what feels like a second act – the rough battle lines are pretty much draw: some witches were murdered by a town years ago and their souls are coming back now to exact vengeance on the current residents of the town. To do this, they’re possessing bodies of women buried in a grove in the woods that was the witches’ mass grave. The only problem is that one of the possessions – that of titular Rachel – seems not to take.

It took twelve issues to get to this point and it has been an deliberate ride, but it now feels like we can get on with some serious advancement in the story. Thus, it was a slight disappointment that this issue didn’t cover more ground. Basically, this issue revealed the the physical bodies of these possessed “witches” don’t rot, but they don’t heal either and it showed the beginnings of a new plot against the little township where the action takes place.

Rachel Rising #12 – Review

By: Terry Moore (writer/artist)

The Story: Malus/Jet is up to some mischief.

Quick Review (with SPOILERS): The highlight of this issue was the whole relationship and interplay between Malus, Zoe and Jet.  It really shows off Terry Moore’s talents as a cartoonist as so much of the storytelling is carried by his art more than the words.  Now that Malus has possessed the body of Jet, Moore has to walk this tightrope between drawing a Jet that has the normal facial expressions of an attractive, 20-something woman and the sinister look of Malus.  It’s hard not to be amazed at how Moore can ace these panels with just the facial expressions and not require lots of exposition; he can just draw Jet looking wicked and not need a, “Mwuhahah, now I’ve got you!” bubble.

Rachel Rising #11 – Review

By: Terry Moore (story/art)

The Story: More of the back story comes into focus…..or does it?

A few things: 1). History lesson. – The opening five pages are a big recollection of the horrible “witch trial” from hundreds of years ago.  This is all brought to us by Lilith (the ringleader of the witches) and from her account, you can really understand why she might be kinda pissed off.  That puts her in an interesting ethical place: clearly she and the other women of this town were wronged in a past, but that doesn’t mean that killing the great-great-grandchildren of your enemies is appropriate.  She’s kinda wrong for the right reasons….

Rachel Rising #9 – Review

By: Terry Moore (writer, artist)

The Story: We finally learn what’s going on with anti-Rachel and the murderous little girl.

A few things (with SPOILERS): 1). Answers at the right moment. – Story driven series like Rachel Rising can only go so long without giving the readers some answers.  These stories start out cool: weird things are happening and the art is awesome.  But, sometime around issue #8 or so, you start to wonder, “What’s the point of all this?”  Even great series will inspire this sort of feeling if they push the reader too far down an unknown path.  Much of the frustration that readers feel with Morning Glories is due to this frustration.

I may not have written it in my review of the last issue, but Rachel Rising was close to that point.  The issue was still good, but the questions were piling up in the back of one’s brain and the complaints would have started in an issue or two.  Bravo to Terry Moore for knowing just when to pop the balloon!

Rachel Rising #8 – Review

By: Terry Moore (writing, art, everything)

The Story: What do you do with a paralyzed zombie?

Review: There’s good and bad in this issue.  I’ll go ahead and get the “bad” out of the way first so we can end on a strong note – because this was generally a good issue.

The only “bad” thing is that I’m kinda ready for this series to “get on with it”.  What is the major source of conflict here?  What is the point of it all?  Why is Moore telling us this story?  These are questions that always come into my mind around issue #8 in a new creator-owned series.  It doesn’t mean that I’m not enjoying the work immensely, but is suggestive of a small frustration and a desire to get a little more out of the story.

For the “good”, let’s begin with the art.  Moore is a master of facial expression.  I feel as if I point that out after every issue, but it’s true.  There is one creepy scene in this issue where he draws a fat dude who has just seen something horrible and his face is perfect.  Seeing that face tells you that this guy is creeped out BIG TIME.  And it’s a nuanced face.  This guy isn’t grossed out, he isn’t really scared yet (because he hasn’t had time to get scared yet) and he isn’t thinking, “Whoa dude!”  It’s pure revulsion, surprise and “Maybe I shouldn’t be here right now!”  Lesser artists will try the same facial expression, but won’t quite nail it and will have to use a word balloon saying “Gah!”  Moore’s skill makes the panel more elegant.

Previews – May 2012

Maybe we’ll start this as a new feature?  I’ll flip through Previews, tell you what I think is worthwhile and you can tell me I’m a moron.  Sound like fun?

DARK HORSE

– Axe Cop: President of the World #1 – At some point, this odd comic that is written by 8 year old Malachai Nicolle and illustrated by his brother, 31 year old Ethan, will lose it’s magic.  Someday Malachai will probably “grow up” too much or become too self-aware, but until that happens we should enjoy the ride.  Here’s a link to my review of last Spring’s Axe Cop: Bad Guy Earth #1.

– Early issues where you can hop on before it’s too late.  Fatima: The Blood Spinners #2 by Gilbert Hernandez, Mind Mgmt #3 by Matt Kindt and The Massive #2 by Brian Wood.

– Eerie Comics #1 brings back the beloved old Warren Publishing title.  It’s really hard to go wrong with a horror anthology in black and white.  Of course, don’t miss the big brother: Creepy Comics #9.

Rachel Rising #7 – Review

By: Terry Moore (writer/artist)

The Story: A friend comes back and some crazy stuff happens down at the graveyard.

Recap/Review (with SPOILERS): This is was a slow-paced issue of Rachel Rising.  You can either look at that as “not much happens” OR you can appreciate spending some extra time with the main cast of characters.

So, let’s take a glass-half-full approach, and appreciate that after several hectic issues it’s nice to see a more character development and less focus on the crazy events going on in this whacky town where women are coming back from the dead.

Rachel doesn’t have a whole lot to do in this issue except to chat with her Aunt Johnny who was injured in the car crash last issue.  Beyond the fact that there is character development, there isn’t much to this scene beyond establishing that the little girl who’s rambling around town since killing her sister with Saran Wrap vanished from the scene of the car accident.  But, whether that is just normal “kid leaving the scene of the crime” or something to do with the crazy events going on isn’t exactly clear.

Rachel Rising #6 – Review

By: Terry Moore (writer/artist/letters)

Story: The “What’s going on?” phase is starting to come to a close as more women are crawling out of the grave.

A few things: [with SPOILERS]

1. I get it…at least I think I do. – Okay, so it’s all about the witches who were put to death in the patch of forest hundreds of years ago and now they’re coming back.  We see that the mystery girl (who is always kind of a harbinger of death) kinda appears as a bonnet-wearing apparition.  And we see that other women are coming back who were buried in the exact same spot.  But, just as I type this, I’m kinda realizing that we still don’t know much at all.  Sure, the witches are involved.  But, why does the woman tossed off the roof have an attack-snake in her mouth?  Why doesn’t Rachel have a snake?  Why does the harbinger-of-death woman also appear to the little girl (who hasn’t been dead as far as we know)?  Why has the little girl’s sister not come back?  Why does Jet reanimate in the morgue without having been buried at all?  As with all good mystery stories, not everything is explained at once.

2. Subtlety to the art! – Man, Terry Moore nails the little things that allow him to tell a story with his art!  Three panels leapt out at me.  First, when the gang leaves Johnny’s house and the old man is left behind, there is something about the old dude that is creepy!  I’m not sure what it is and that tells me a lot.  I mean, I review comics on at “semi-pro” level and actively look for those little elements of facial expression and body language that the gifted artists can use.  Usually I can tell what the artist is doing, but in this case I haven’t a clue.  Terry Moore is doing something unique to make that kindly old man into something creepy!  The second and third panels are both in one scene.  When the “fiance-lady” crawls out of the dirt and the redneck stops to help her, there’s nothing about his words that indicate anything is amiss.  I mean, he says he was a medic in the army and he needs to check her for injuries; sounds reasonable, right?  But, when you look at the art, he is clearly putting his hand up her skirt.  What a sicko, huh?  Taking advantage of an injured girl?!?  And, that brings me to the second element of the scene: When the girl looks at the redneck with those evil, narrowed eyes and furrowed brow…  That whole look is withering as it says both “Really?” and “You will die!” at the same time.

Rachel Rising #5 – Review

By: Terry Moore (script, art, letters, everything)

The Story: Rachel tries to get her life back in order and the creepy little girl might be headed to a foster home.

Three Things: 

1. The detail in Terry Moore’s art is really impressive. – Of course, everyone knows that Terry Moore is great at drawing expressions.  But, that’s to be expected from a dude who sells a book called, “Terry Moore’s How to Draw Expressions”.  But the level of detail in his art always amazes me too.  It’s never excessive and it never distracts from the storytelling elements on the page, but he always seems to know what to add to a panel to make it seem more real.  A lot of this is unglamorous work: a garden hose and charcoal grill in a back yard or a bunch of detailed bark on a tree trunk.  I mean, I don’t think many artists enjoy drawing garden hoses, but these scenes need something to fill in some dead space.  It’s just nice to see an accomplished artist like Moore who is still doing the heavy lifting required to draw ~10 distinct outfits of clothes hanging in a closet (instead of just drawing a bunch of squiggly lines and calling it “clothes”)

2. Depressurized storytelling done right. – This certainly isn’t a fast-paced story and if you read my reviews of superhero comics, you might think that I HATE depressurized storytelling.  But that isn’t true at all.  I DO hate it when there’s no point and I DO hate it when we all know that Captain America is going to win at the end of the 6-issue arc.  But, what Moore is doing here is depressurized and beautiful.  Each panel has a point to it whether it just shows Rachel looking out the window or her interacting with her kinda butch aunt.  Even the quiet pages have a lot of thought behind them.

Rachel Rising #4 – Review

By: Terry Moore (story, art, letters…)

The Story: The pieces of Rachel’s “death” start to come into greater focus.
Four Things: [Minor SPOILERS]

1. Rachel’s condition is starting to become clear. – Okay, she clearly cannot die or she is at least very hard to kill.  In the beginning of the series we saw her rise from a shallow grave.  Now we’ve seen her reanimate after falling off a building.  Maybe this isn’t perpetual since we do get her vital signs this time and they suggest that she’s barely got a heartbeat.  Maybe it’s like she has 9 lives or something.  But, there is clearly something weird going on that keeps her moving.

2. A few other pieces start clicking together too. – There was a whole interesting nexus of plot threads in this issue.  It was all kinds of weird (in a good way) that after we saw the guy finish burying his fiancée in a shallow grave that the little girl who killed her sister comes lurching along, smashes into his car and basically says, “Dude, you gonna help me or not?! ”  And the dude just kinda shrugs his shoulders and helps her dispose of the body.  It’s a surreal scene all around… “Oh well, I did just kill my fiancée and buried her in the woods.  Might as well help this little girl who I don’t know bury her dead body too.”  And, it was interesting that the burial spot seemed to be the same place where Rachel was buried.  I’ll talk about the mysteries below, but Moore is smart to connect a few dots even at this early stage because fans bitch about series that leave everything unresolved (think Morning Glories after about issue #10).

Rachel Rising #3 – Review

By: Terry More (writing, art, lettering, everything)

The Story: Hard to describe.  As Rachel continues trying to get her bearings, the bodies keep accumulating.

Review: This issue really defies my bullet-pointed review format because this issue is very much like watching a TV show between two commercial breaks.  There IS a start to the action and a tasty cliffhanger-ette at the end, but it just doesn’t lend itself to chopping up into discrete pieces.  That’s likely due to the seamless nature of the work as it all springs from the mind of one man.

UNSETTING.  That’s the word I’d use to describe this issue and series.  It is very deliberately paced, but that’s to be expected as we’re just getting started with the story.  All we really know is that Rachel has woken up in a shallow grave with a strangulation mark on her neck and red eyes and she’s trying to figure out what happened.  At the same time, there’s another young attractive woman around town who is able to inspire people to kill.  Last issue she got a ~10 year old girl to smother her ~18 year old sister with plastic wrap.  This issue she gets a man to toss his fiancée off a roof.  Clearly (since it is in the story) this evil woman and Rachel have some kind of connection, but we really don’t know much else.  However, it is unsettling as hell.

But, what makes this issue such a success are the subtle things that really have nothing to do with the story.  Like when Rachel barfs up a piece of twine.  WTF?  Why did she have twine in her stomach?  Or the way Moore masterfully shows body language and facial expression.  The evil girl looks like bad news, but you can’t really tell why.

The man who kills his fiancée has such priceless expressions too and those expressions allow Moore to adopt a “less is more” approach with the script.  He doesn’t have to belabor the panel with a word balloon describing the man’s emotions, because you can just tell what he’s thinking.  This is cool for a couple of reasons.  One, comics are always more effective when they leave items like that slightly vague.  The reader can pretty much tell where the man is emotionally by his body language and facial expression.  Let’s just say that Moore’s art gets you 90% of the way to the whole story.  But by leaving it 10% open to interpretation, Moore is allowing the reader to form his/her own personal connection with the events and that is brilliant.

Rachel Rising #2 – Review

By: Terry Moore (the whole damn thing… writing, art, lettering…)

The Story: Rachel tries to talk to a friend about what happened to her and elsewhere the beginnings of a murderous plot expose itself.

Review: Again, this is a hard series to review in single issues because you know that we are merely at the beginning of a 30-100 issue complete story.  I’ve used the analogy before that it is like pausing a feature movie every 15 minutes and writing a review about what you think.  Kinda dumb, huh?  The easy thing is to just not write reviews of this sort of material and it wouldn’t surprise me if the most of the “named” comic review sites drop their coverage of the series pretty early on.  That’s a shame because this is the type of series that deserves more coverage merely for offering us something original that is very different than whatever Hulk or Batman are doing.  We need to encourage this stuff and help remind readers that it exists.

This will be a full on SPOILERS review because without that, it is hard to write more than, “It’s good and creepy.  You should read it.”  If you’re waiting for the trade, just know that it is good and if you’ve enjoyed Terry Moore in the past or if you enjoy Vertigo-type stories, this will be your type of thing.

Two interesting things happen in this issue.  The first shows Rachel visiting her Aunt Johnny who runs the local funeral home.  As you can imagine, with a scene taking place in a funeral home in the dead of night as the Aunt works on a dead body, it is unsettling.  Amping things up is the fact that the Aunt seems convinced that Rachel is just another spirit who visits her late at night in the funeral home.  We really don’t know what is going on with Rachel (did her “killer” just bury her before she was really dead OR more likely there is something weird afoot) and the Aunt seems kinda nuts, so these scenes only serve to increase the sense of unease and confusion that Moore is building.

Rachel Rising #1 – Review

By: Terry Moore (story & art)

The Story: Terry Moore, who brought us Strangers in Paradise & Echo, trots out his newest series.

The Review: It is very difficult to discuss this issue without a SPOILER WARNING.
This is a pretty hard issue to review because it is merely a first chapter and it comes right on the heels of Moore wrapping up Echo.  Now, based on track record and talent level, Rachel Rising should be a very intelligent and rewarding ride for the next 3-4 years, but this issue makes it pretty clear that Moore treats an ongoing comic series as a marathon, not a sprint.

The basic premise is revealed in the opening pages as we see a woman rising from a shallow grave in the forest while another woman (look at her closely) looks on.  It’s a prolonged scene too, where Moore really makes the reader feel the struggle this young woman is having as she pulls herself from the dirt.  We also get a few point-of-view flashback scenes of her attacker (which is really creepy) and a few tidbit hints that her rise may not merely be a case of the killer burying her before she was really dead; something supernatural seems to be involved.

From there we follow this young woman as she staggers back to her house, examines her wounds (complete with a few more flashbacks), and begins trying to recapture what the hell happened to her.